Page 67 of Dirty Air
“You’re still just in a VFIBR. Next year you’re going to be consistent competition.”
“Blaming the car?” Fritz tuts. “What happened to ‘I will not work with you unless you try to win every race’?”
“I’m optimistic only when it benefits me,” Henry replies, simply. “But, realistically speaking, you aren’t much of a threat to the front in a VFIBR. Not in the way you will be next year.”
There’s an uncomfortable amount of ‘you’s in this conversation. Not a lot of ‘we’s. “Have you talked to Adam Stone?”
“No?” Henry cuts into his chicken breast. What’s the point of eating with someone who chooses a driver-appropriate meal? “Should I? Want me to give your new race engineer some pointers?”
Fritz’s face flames. Henry probably isn’t talking about anything sexual, but the longer he’s silent, the more awkward it feels. “No, I was just wondering.”
At least Henry hadn’t turned the job down yet. That has to be a positive. Still, if it takes any longer, Fritz feels like he might go insane with it.
He buries himself in the track conditions report and tries not to wonder what Henry will decide when the choice is presented to him.
Fritz is out in Q1. P16.
He screams as loud as he can inside the helmet before he takes it off. There’s a camera crew right in front of him, ready to pounce the second he shows any emotion.
The newest Red Boar driver: a disappointment before he begins.
Fritz can’t even blame the car. He hates to admit it, but he might not be ready to drive just yet.
There’s a pundit alongside the camera crew following him through the garage, but he grabs the nearest friendly mechanic for a distraction.
“Rough go ovit,” Albert says, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll jus’ do be’er tomorrow.”
“Of course,” Fritz says, though he doesn’t believe it. “Can you please just talk for a bit before I have to face the camera?”
“I don’ envy that part ovit.”
“How is your wife?”
Albert talks until he gives Fritz the signal that the camera crew is distracted with someone else. Fritz takes the opportunity to sneak out of the garage, across pit lane, and to the wall.
“What happened out there?” Henry asks without prompting. How did he even see him approach?
“It is not the car’s fault. It was my foot.”
Henry sends a panicked glance down to his racing boot and back up. “You didn’t hurt it again, did you? Do you need medical?”
“No, not medical.” Fritz rocks up to the balls of his feet and back down. “It feels like I do not have my strength back yet.”
“Your times were off from free practice.”
“I know.”
“By up to two seconds in one stint.”
“Iknow.”
“And your foot got worse between this morning and now?” Henry studies him seriously, as if he’s trying to catch him in a lie. “You need to tell me—tellsomeone—if we’re putting you in a dangerous position to race tomorrow.”
Fritz shifts uncomfortably. “There is nothing to tell. My foot could not take the strain.”
“But this morning it could?”
“Correct.”
