They say when you can no longer handle the fear, when crashes finally get to you and you can’t take the car on to the ragged edge without that feeling of losing control, then it’s time to quit. Get scared and you shouldn’t be in the car in the first place. Time to hang up your helmet and gloves and find a life outside F1 or often in its expanding bureaucracy.

But it’s not supposed to apply to lovers, is it? I mean, I’m not the one sitting in that 200m/p/h flying red bullet. I’m not the one risking my neck every day by climbing into that restrictive cockpit and hurtling around an unforgiving asphalt track at colossal speeds, putting your life not only in your own hands but in the car, those of the engineers and the other twenty one other lunatics brave enough to pilot one of these beautiful but dangerous machines. I’m safe in the pitlane, engrossing myself in my solace of telemetry to avoid my thoughts wandering back to you out there.

And Christ, today scared even though I know it should have.

Perhaps I’m getting too old for this now. Or perhaps I just should have known better than to get involved with my team’s star driver, to fall in love with him so gradually I hardly noticed when my feelings turned from almost paternal affection to a real desire. 

And when you got over the initial shock at discovering my true feelings, it wasn’t long before you made it clear that you wouldn’t refuse me, reciprocating my love and making me the happiest man alive.

Today, today I guess proved how utterly enthralling you are to me, how perfect. Not just physically but mentally, having a strength and courage I can’t even comprehend. My heart jumped straight into my throat when I saw that car slam into the back and over you. And yes, it was heartless when my first concerns were of you and not of the young guy catapulted into the air. It’s just all my dark thoughts, all my fears broke free from that sealed part of my mind and I froze at the thought of what could happen.

Ever since that fated day at Silverstone I’ve become worse. The day I thought I could have really lost you. Seeing you wave to the crowds to tell them you were okay was the only thing that kept me from screaming a deafening cry.

Today brought it all back. And then when you sprinted back and jumped into the spare car as if nothing had happened, I was stunned at how calm you were, how focused. I just guess that’s how you are. You are stronger than me, as perfect as is humanly possible. Instead, there I was, a shivering wreck having to cover up my feelings from you and the team and do my job, while my heart still pounded a death beat and my hands shook from nerves.

You sensed I was still shaken when you came back to the pits after seeing your brother. I know you don’t understand why I feel like I do. Or maybe you do now, you now know how I’ve felt all those years watching you out on the track when you watch your younger brother out there. You must feel those same protective urges with the very true knowledge haunting you, telling you that there’s always that chance that this race he could crash.

I would never want to stop you though. You live for this and despite what I feel I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that. And no matter how uncomfortable or difficult our relationship gets, I would never want you in another team, could never envisage my days without you here. It’s not that I wouldn’t trust you or that we might drift apart, I just wouldn’t trust any one else to design and build the car you risk your health and life in. You are my responsibility and I wouldn’t place it in anyone else’s hands.

Whispering soothing reassurances that you were fine, you let me hold you, my arms around your perfectly slender waist as we sat in the privacy of the motorhome, your back against my chest and resting your head against my shoulder. For a time we had an oasis from the chaos in which we live our lives daily.

We both know what we are doing is not only irrational but wrong, risking everything we have for these brief moments but I guess if you can live with risk every day, I might as well join you.

And as your lips brushed against my neck, your eyes flickering closed as you gave yourself over to an untroubled sleep, for all my fears I knew I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world.

~The End.