Chapter Text
The walls of the stewards’ office are bare, the air-conditioned chill doing nothing to cool the tempers in the room. Lando sits with his arms crossed, his jaw clenched so tightly it could crack. Oscar looks infuriatingly composed, with his expression blank and his posture relaxed as if they weren’t sitting in the middle of a meeting that could alter the course of their season.
Charles sits between them, his head throbbing. He’s done this before. He’s sat in these same chairs and endured the same tense questioning from the stewards, always defending the team. But this time, it’s different.
This time, he’s not sure McLaren deserves his defense.
A steward clears his throat. “Let’s go over the incident one more time.”
The screen in front of them flickers to life, displaying the collision in brutal detail. Slow motion. Different angles. The onboard.
Charles has already seen it enough times to have it seared into his memory. On Lap 47, Oscar made his move, too aggressive, too desperate. Lando defends. Oscar turns in. There’s no room left. And it’s an impact with a shower of carbon fiber. Two McLarens go into the wall.
Double DNF.
Disaster.
Lando exhales sharply. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? He turned in on me.”
Oscar is quick to jump in. “I was ahead.”
“You weren’t clear.” Lando opposes.
“Yes, I was.”
Lando raises his eyebrows, surprised. Charles places a firm hand on his arm, silently urging him to calm down and tone down the outrage. It wasn't helping the case he was trying to make.
The stewards glance at Charles expectantly. He’s McLaren’s Sporting Director, the team’s spokesperson in these situations. It’s his job to say something.
“Look,” he begins, carefully choosing his words. “The data doesn’t lie. Oscar had space, but ultimately, it was not enough. It was a racing incident.” He turns to Oscar, his voice encouraging. “Tell them, Oscar.”
Oscar doesn’t react, but Charles sees the flicker of something. Defensiveness? Guilt?
The stewards exchange glances. The lead official leans forward. “Oscar, I won’t lie. Your steering input suggests you didn’t attempt to avoid the contact. If anything, you committed to the corner, fully knowing Lando was still there.”
Oscar stays silent.
The steward probes him. “Anything to say? Or add?”
Oscar’s quiet.
Charles needs to save this.
“I truly believe that if you look at Oscar’s onboard, you’ll see all the proof you need. He saw some space and he went for it. He just misjudged how much space there was. As I said, our team’s position is that it was a racing incident.”
Charles doesn’t believe a word he’s saying.
As the stewards stare at him, Charles wonders if they know that too.
The lead steward nods once, slowly, almost patronizingly. “I see. We’ll be deliberating penalties, but I suggest you prepare for a bad outcome, honestly.”
A pit settles in Charles’s stomach.
Because of the heavy penalties he knows are coming, yes.
But also because of Oscar’s reaction.
Because as he turns to look at him, it looks like he doesn’t care.
***
They’re back in the McLaren debrief room.
It’s still as suffocatingly tense.
Charles stands at the head of the table. He knows how this is going to go. He’s seen it before. It’s drivers blinded by the need to win at any cost. But this time, it’s worse.
Because this time, Oscar did it on purpose.
Charles knows it.
So does Lando.
“You know you turned in on me. Everyone knows you turned in on me. Stop fucking acting innocent. What the hell were you thinking? Did you really think no one was going to know?”
Oscar looks calm. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, mate. There was space And you just closed it off when you saw me coming. If you’d given me an extra inch, like you should have, I’d have passed, and we’d both be on the podium.”
Charles purses his lips. He knows Oscar is lying. He saw the data, the steering input, and the onboard.
Oscar had deliberately crashed into Lando.
He’d gotten desperate after a seven-race win drought.
He thought the contact would take Lando out of the race. He thought that he’d win the race, get 25 more points, and save his championship charge.
Instead, he’d handed Max the win. Max who was in an inferior car, who was strongly yet quietly sitting third in the championship— well. Not anymore.
In trying to secure an advantage in the Drivers’ Championship, Oscar had cost the team a lot.
It was a McLaren 1-2 down the drain.
A double DNF.
A constructor championship setback.
And Max leaping up the standings, taking over Lando’s championship lead.
McLaren’s momentum was shattered.
“Enough,” Charles says firmly.
The room falls silent. For a moment.
Then, the arguing starts again.
Oscar and Lando talk over each other, and with each truthful accusation thrown in his face, Oscar gives up on his calm demeanor. His voice rises, matching Lando’s, both trying to pin the blame on the other.
And as he watches them, Charles realizes, as the Sporting Director, he was supposed to defend them in front of the stewards, craft a narrative that minimizes penalties, save face in front of the press.
But how would he do so when they don’t let him speak?
When he joined McLaren in 2021, it wasn’t like this.
Back then, it was a midfield team fighting for its place, hoping for points. Occasional podiums if the stars aligned.
They celebrated sixth place like a win, and when things went wrong, they owned it together. There was no room for ego or politics, only hope and belief, the raw, collective hunger to climb up the grid.
Charles had loved that team. It was the team who gave him his big break.
They took a chance on a young engineer who wanted more. They fast-tracked him into the sporting director position, trusting him to make high-pressure calls when he was still learning how to keep his voice steady.
After his promotion, he was the Sporting Director and more. He was the guy cheering in the garage at midnight debriefs, the one sitting on the pit wall with his fingers crossed, living and breathing every lap. He was as much a sporting director as he was a supporter, cheering them on, pulling them aside when tensions got too high, knowing when to speak and when to stay quiet.
He’d loved Daniel when he was here. He supported Daniel back when he held what was now Oscar’s seat. He watched him slowly lose his confidence, then regain it before stepping aside.
He watched Lando come into his own.
He saw Oscar earn his stripes.
He’d seen Lando and Oscar pull together when it mattered. He'd witnessed the moments where they delivered every ounce of potential the car had.
He saw everyone’s teamwork when it mattered, when it meant something, when finishing P5 meant locking down crucial points in a tight battle. He was there when the two sides of the garages shared data willingly, sacrificing personal glory because the team needed them to.
They were together then.
But something shifted in mid-2023.
The car got fast.
Really fast.
Suddenly, McLaren wasn’t chasing points, they were chasing wins.
Podiums became the standard. And with every point on the table, came pressure. And expectations. And rivalry.
Hungary 2024 was the first real crack.
Oscar had taken the lead at Turn 1, Lap 1, clean and hard. But when the strategy error dropped him behind Lando, the team asked Lando to give the place back. And he did, begrudgingly, because it was the right thing.
But afterward, Lando had come to Charles, and he'd said he wished he hadn’t. That it made him look weak, that it made the team too comfortable with downplaying him.
That it made Oscar too bold.
And Lando had been right.
Monza. Lap 1, Turn 4. Oscar dove down and took the lead, ignoring the team’s countless pre-race talks of playing it safe until the 1-2 was secure.
Lando couldn’t afford a DNF. At the time, he still had hopes of a Driver’s Championship. And with Max’s considerable point advantage, he had too much to lose.
And so, he had played it safe, didn’t fight back and didn’t crash.
Everyone knew Oscar had gone against team interest. He’d ignored orders. He’d risked a crash. He’d put his ambitions ahead.
And they’d lost the 1-2 that day.
Worse, they didn’t even see the ripple effects of that gamble coming.
They didn’t know it then, but Oscar’s move would cost them a win that gave Ferrari the boost they needed to drag the Constructors' Championship into a final, chaotic showdown in Abu Dhabi.
And still, the team refused to say it.
Refused to name the problem.
That they couldn’t control their drivers.
So here they are. Again.
And now, looking at the two of them, Lando, furious but gutted, Oscar, calm and still, Charles can’t help but wonder if the trust that once held the team together is already gone. He wonders if the team’s ambitions would die not due to poor performance, but to flimsy decisions and purposefully muddied instructions.
Charles knows one thing.
If he was in charge, this wouldn’t have happened.
“Shut up.” His voice is unmistakably sharp this time, cutting through the noise. Lando and Oscar turn to look at him.
Charles exhales. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” He looks between them. “Do you care?”
Lando shifts uncomfortably. Oscar looks away.
Then, the door opens. Andrea walks in, face bleak. Charles already knows what’s coming, and he already knows it’s bad.
“We got the ruling,” he says. “One penalty point for Lando. Four penalty points and a five-place grid penalty for Oscar for the next race.” He levels Charles with a look. “How did you let this happen? I thought we agreed. Frame it as a racing incident and minimize damages.”
Charles meets Andrea’s gaze, feeling the weight of the question settle in his chest. How did you let this happen?
He didn’t let this happen.
Oscar was thinking of himself, as any driver would.
Lando didn’t want to back down, as any driver would.
The team was unraveling in front of his eyes, and he was expected to hold it all together with nothing but forced neutrality that was slipping through his fingers.
“I tried,” Charles says. “They didn’t exactly make it easy.”
Andrea exhales sharply, rubbing a hand over his face. “This is a disaster.”
No one dares to disagree.
Lando is still fuming, leg shaking up and down, up and down.
Oscar, on the other hand, is infuriatingly unaffected. The five-place grid drop clearly did not do much damage.
“You had no right,” Lando says, looking ahead, his voice quiet but sharp as a blade. “You had no right to throw the 1-2 away because you couldn't handle being beaten. Again.”
Oscar tilts his head. “I went for the gap.”
Lando lets out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “You and your corny fucking quotes, mate. We both know the team was going to pick a driver to prioritize for the championship after this race. You thought winning would mean it'd be you.”
Charles watches Oscar carefully, searching for something. A reaction, a confirmation of Lando’s accusation. He finds nothing.
Lando continues.
“You’re forgetting that the numbers already decided. It’s been twelve races so far. I won six of them. You won twice. I out-qualified you nine times. I finished ahead of you in nine of the races. The decision was made before we even got here. One win wasn’t going to change that. They already knew who they were going to prioritize. And it wasn’t going to be you.”
Silence.
Oscar’s nonchalance seems to slightly crack. Just for a second, something flashes in his eyes. And Charles knows then. He’s not as unaffected as he wants them to believe.
Andrea’s voice breaks the silence. “This doesn’t just affect the two of you. This affects the entire team.” His expression hardens. “Do you have any idea how much damage this has done to the constructors’? Mercedes is right there.”
Neither of them speaks.
“Max is leading the championship now,” Charles says. “Because of this.” He glances at Lando. “Because you couldn’t let it go.” Then at Oscar. “And because you cared more about winning than the team.”
They both look away.
Andrea shakes his head. “We’ll deal with this later. Right now, we need to figure out how the hell we solve this so it doesn’t implode the rest of our season.”
Charles already knows Andrea’s solution.
Joke, downplay, call it a good thing. They love to see they two number one drivers push each other to the limit.
It’s the same script every time.
The same decisions every time.
Someone who does the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, is a fool. Isn’t that what they say?
***
Later, Charles sits alone in his hotel room, the glow of his laptop screen illuminating the darkened room. The replay loops on his screen. The consequences loop in his mind.
His phone buzzes.
I know you must be frustrated after today. Want you to know that my offer still stands.
Charles stares at the screen.
He’s turned Christian down before. More than once.
He told himself McLaren was home.
That McLaren gave him his big break.
That they took a gamble on him, fast-tracked his promotion.
That they trusted him even when he was merely a young engineer with something to prove.
He should ignore Christian. He should stay loyal.
But after today...
Could he have the patience to rehash the same story? To walk into another debrief where no one listens, where the same mistakes get made and excused and made again?
Could he have the patience to obey orders he knows are wrong? Could he bite his tongue while the team makes stupid decisions?
Maybe a change wouldn’t be so bad.