Chapter Text
The news that McLaren had hired a new performance engineer wasn’t news within itself, especially after the news that Lando’s old engineer had retired at the end of the ‘23 season, finally tired of the whole formula one travelling circus.
What was news, however, was that they were hiring Oscar Piastri as their new performance engineer. A twenty-two year old kid who had not previously worked in Formula One at all and was currently embroiled in some kind of scandal with Alpine, who were apparently convinced that McLaren had snatched away the talent that they had fostered in their interning programs.
Nevertheless, this was picked up ruthlessly by the news cycle, with Piastri’s credentials and history being flamed in practically every corner of the internet which concerned itself with matters regarding formula one. Some arguing that this might be the stupidest strategy decision in f1 since crashgate, others saying new blood was desperately needed.
Lando saw the news that he’d been hired with not a small amount of annoyance. He knew why Will had left, but if he’d known he would’ve gotten an inexperienced and possibly incompetent engineer, practically a kid! He was younger than Lando for god’s sake, he might’ve campaigned for him to stay a bit harder. Never mind the insanity that McLaren was indulging, letting two people whose combined ages made up 45 basically control the movements and strategy of a 800 tonne rocket that flew around circuits at over 200 km/h. So yeah, Lando could think of a lot of ways this could go wrong.
What didn’t help, was that every time he tried to voice these concerns with Zak or Andrea, he was brushed off with promises that Oscar was ‘some of the smartest talent they’d hired in years’, and he was ‘lucky to have the chance to work with him’. This did nothing but fuel the vitriol Lando was slowly building towards the kid.
Well then, He thought, bitterly, after his concerns had once again been swept under the rug, Oscar Piastri, let’s see what you’ve got.
***
“They’re saying he’s some kind of genius” He was complaining during a padel match with George before the kick-off to pre-season testing. George side eyed him, arching a brow at his harsh tone.
They were sat at the edge of the court, taking a water break between games, and George, gossip that he was, had inevitably asked him about the recent drama.
“Isn’t that good for you, mate?” George asked.
Lando just grumbled, “he’s like… twenty-two, this could be the season where I can actually do something in the car and they’re sending me out with some-” He waved his hands about “Some twenty something wonderkid with no high-level experience. What if it’s a fricken… disaster or something”
George is still watching him, brow arched higher, somehow. Surely he would run out of forehead soon. “Then I’ll be ready to take the positions you inevitably drop if you get a strategy fuck up”, he said, cheerfully.
Lando glared at him “Fuck off mate”, George just laughed at him, the bastard.
“You planning on qualifying behind me that often?”, he jabbed again, wanting to get the last word. Annoyingly, George didn’t take the bait, just rolling his eyes imperiously at him, which, rude.
“C’mon,” he said, patting his shoulder as he stood back up, “Reckon we’ve got another game in us”
Lando stayed sitting, staring incredulously at the other man, “seriously? You’re not gonna say anything about my season being potentially screwed over by some rookie engineer?”
George didn’t even pause, still walking towards the other side of the court, throwing over his shoulder, “If they thought it was going to be a disaster, McLaren wouldn’t have hired him”
Which, weirdly, Lando hadn’t actually thought about that, too stuck in his spiral of doom at the prospect of heading out to the first season where they could actually be competitive completely unprepared, to consider the absolutely insane possibility that the guy maybe, maybe, and that was a very tentative maybe, was actually able pull this stunt off.
***
The first factory day with the new guy bloomed on a grey English morning, as was the norm. More importantly, this was the day Lando would meet Oscar Piastri, the guy who apparently set twitter on fire with his job appointment and would hopefully not send Lando’s sixth season of formula one similarly up in flames.
He walked into the first engineering meeting of the year, immediately scanning for unfamiliar faces. Unfortunately for Lando, it was the first engineering meeting of the year, meaning there were at least four new faces around the table.
The new guy furthest from the door caught his attention immediately though, clearly quite a bit younger than the rest of the people in the room, wearing a black hoodie, head full of fluffy brown hair bent over a beat-up leather notebook which had clearly seen better days.
Just as Lando was squinting at the new guy, presumably Oscar, he was caught at the elbow by Zak, who had somehow appeared out of nowhere.
“Ah Lando, Good to see you! Good winter break?”, Zak boomed, American accent grating through the morning air, slapping Lando on the back, hard. As Lando responded, he noticed that Zak’s …noticeably loud appearance had garnered the attention of his new engineer, who was looking in their direction, an impassive expression on his face.
And. Hm. If this guy wasn’t apparently the deciding factor between Lando actually having a fighting chance this year or wasting another season leading the midfield, Lando might have actually pegged him as exactly his type. Which was. Lando didn’t know how to feel about that particular thought.
He had dark brown eyes, framed by expressive eyebrows and a perfectly swooped fringe of hair, small constellations of moles marking his face and down his neck. Lando idly wondered how far down they went before aggressively pushing that thought away. This guy could be the be all or end all of his season, get it together Norris.
Just then, Zak clapped Lando on the back. Again. Harder. Lando tried not to wince.
“And here’s your new engineer”, he said, wearing a slightly unhinged grin which Lando knew he saved for their sponsors he was trying to impress, which was worrying.
What was more worrying at that moment was that Zak was aggressively leading Lando towards Oscar, who had stood up out of his chair, holding a hand out towards Lando as they approached. Lando took it, Oscar’s hand was noticeably smaller than his, which, again. Hm.
“Good to finally meet you mate”, Oscar started, He was Australian? How had Lando missed that? Hm. Lando really needed to stop having realisations about this guy, of all the goddamn people.
“Yeah, you too”, he said easily, well he tried, But Oscar’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptively at him, as if sensing all of the unflattering thoughts Lando had had about his new appointment in the last couple weeks.
Zak, completely missing this small exchange, clapped both of them on the back, which, again. Ow. At least oscar also winced slightly at Zak’s aggressive movement, which Lando took a wholly unnecessary and unmediated amount of glee in.
“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted with each other then” He boomed, winking. Lando thought that part was a bit odd, but whatever.
And then Zak was gone, leaving the two of them to themselves. The whole ‘getting to know eachother’ thing was a bit pointless, as the meeting started not even thirty seconds after Zak had decided he no longer needed to grace them with his presence. Lando slumped into the seat next to Oscar, who hadn’t looked at him again since they sat back down, resigning himself to a very long year.
***
As Lando was finally leaving the MTC after a full day of meetings, engineering, sponsorship and sim data related alike, he was absolutely knackered. he hadn’t actually gathered all that much more information about Oscar. They’d been separated almost immediately after that first meeting for whatever reason and now all Lando had to work with was that very short interaction this morning.
As he was wandering through the practically empty halls, ready to go home, he heard footsteps coming up behind him.
“I know you don’t want me as your engineer” Lando’s brows shot up as he heard the Australian accent of his new engineer. He spun around in the hallway, meeting Oscar’s eyes. He narrowed his own at the younger man.
“I don’t think I ever said that”, he rebutted.
Oscar’s gaze was flat, steady, “you’re not exactly subtle, mate”
Lando felt the tops of his ears turn red, well shit, caught. He thought he was much less transparent than that, or maybe it was just Oscar, the Australian gave off the impression that he was the type to be able to read Lando very easily, which was vaguely unsettling.
“You think I’m inexperienced, you think I’ll fuck your races up” he continued.
Lando scoffed, refusing to let this- this rookie, have one up on him, “Point to the experience on your resume that says you won’t”, he was getting proper fired up now, trying to hit where it hurt.
“Maybe I’ll surprise you” Oscar continued, his gaze met Lando’s, challenge clear in his eyes.
Lando’s eyebrows rose at the audacity, a small smile growing on his face, before he threw back in Oscar’s direction.
“Maybe you won’t”
“What if I do?”
“If, if, if…”, Lando quoted, mockingly.
“If I do fuck your season up, my entire career as a racing engineer in Formula One is over” Oscar stated plainly. “McLaren is taking a gamble in hiring me, a big one, and frankly, I have more on the line here than you do. After the whole Alpine fiasco, no one will be willing to hire me, this is my last chance”, his tone was honest, his brown eyes boring into Lando as he laid out his options, or, his lack thereof.
“You have nothing to lose, I have everything” His words sat between them in the hallway.
Which was fair enough, lando supposed. He considered it, if Oscar fucked up, lando got a shit season, with the knowledge that he was signed until 2025, at least. Oscar’s stakes were that he’d lose his job, and likely all future prospects within F1.
Lando narrowed his eyes in consideration, tilting his head to the side as he sized up his new engineer. Before he stuck his hand out for Oscar to shake, which he did.
“Game on, rookie” he smirked
Game fucking on. It’s not like he had anything to lose.