Page 7 of Faster
Chapter Four
Wyatt Bailey, Commentator: “And the big news this week is that silly season wasn’t over until it was indeed over.
Luca Bendetto is now teamed with Ethan Harrow at Scuderia Lupo.
The shake-up came as Panther Motors stole Micaela Cartwright out from under Lupo.
Not only is she the first female driver with a permanent spot on the grid in decades, but she’s also the most controversial driver.
Laura had Luca in the press pen a few hours ago, before testing started. ”
Laura Baxter, Reporter/Commentator: “Thank you, Wyatt. Yes, I was able to speak with Luca at the livery launch, and he seemed just as in shock as the rest of us. By all accounts, his career in this series was over, and he was just about to sign with an IndyCar series team that he won’t now name.
But I’ll let him tell you all how he feels in his own words. ”
Luca Bendetto, Driver, Scuderia Lupo: “I’m just really grateful to be back in the Lupo family. In this sport, you have to grab onto every opportunity you’re given. I know I’m going to get what I’ve wanted—forever—at Lupo.”
Laura Baxter: “Do you think you’ll be able to nick a World Championship off of Ethan this year?”
Luca: “That and more, Laura. That and more.”
There was a real first day of school feeling as Luca walked through the paddock in Bahrain.
The flat tops of the permanent concrete structures were reminiscent of the traditional coral-and-palm-frond buildings in the archipelago and felt familiar to him—as though he could finally breathe.
Everything about his joining Lupo had been rushed and last-minute, but the feeling of being back—truly back—slipped over him with a sense of rightness that he hadn’t realized he’d missed.
A calm had come over him when his driver had pulled up to the circuit in the middle of the Sakhir desert.
During testing, there weren’t as many spectators as there usually were at the track, so he made his way easily to the temporary team facilities, which housed offices and hospitality.
During race week, he’d have to push his way through crowds of fans who wanted a selfie or an autograph, and he’d need his trainer or someone from the team with him to keep him from being waylaid.
Toward the end of his time with his previous team, he’d kind of resented the entitlement that fans of the sport had over his time and image.
He’d always put on a good face, but he was a mostly private guy.
He hadn’t grown up destined to become a racing driver.
His father had taken him to a karting track when he was eight for his birthday, and Luca had fallen in love with the feeling of flying over the ground.
Luca’s father had seen the pure joy on his son’s face and took him back the following weekend—and the next and the next.
Luca had no idea how his family had afforded it.
He hadn’t really thought about the fact that they sold one of their cars, and his mom took the bus to work.
His father had taken gig work after his day job doing accounting.
Most of the kids he competed against had fathers who were in the racing world.
Or they came from so much money that their families could afford the expense.
Once they were old enough, it was normal for posh families to send their kids off to boarding school.
So, it totally made sense for them to send their racers off to Europe once they’d graduated from karting around the UK.
His family had wrestled with it, but Luca’s desire to continue racing—and his pure talent—made it impossible for them to refuse him. But Luca had never quite shaken off the feeling of not belonging among the other drivers—even when he’d won a championship his third year racing.
That was what had bothered him about losing his seat to a paid driver at the end of the last season—it had been like a confirmation that he shouldn’t be there and had never deserved it. He’d been languishing in the backmarker team with a tiny budget, but he’d been clinging on just the same.
Even with the complications brought by being teammates with Ethan, he wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.
He saw Heka Godwinson—his shock of blond hair and determined stride were hard to miss—and expected him to walk past, but the other driver stopped.
Luca had always liked Heka. He was taciturn and grumpy about having to do anything but race the car, but he could always be trusted to be straightforward.
Heka was a little bit older than him and Ethan, and they’d both looked up to him as they’d risen through the ranks.
Luca anticipated that the veteran driver would mumble a greeting and move on, but the Finnish former champion clapped him once on the shoulder. “I’m glad to see you back.”
That was likely as close to saying, “I miss you,” as Heka ever got. His usually flat mouth even turned up into something resembling a smile.
“Things turned out all right.”
“If it makes you feel better, they didn’t even come to me to fill the seat.” Given that Heka had won two championships in a row and was always on the list when a team needed someone fast and aggressive, that made Luca feel a lot better. Lupo had wanted him and not just any warm body.
It didn’t matter what the press release said or how the team principal spun the move, the team had egg on their face because their once-in-a-lifetime talented female driver had chosen to sign on with the American team.
Micaela Cartwright was supposed to bring the storied Scuderia Lupo into the future, and she’d jumped ship. It made the team look bad, and there would be questions about why she’d made that decision for years to come.
It would have made perfect sense for a team to go with a veteran driver—one who hadn’t been fired. That Lupo had taken a chance on him without going that route made him feel better. Heka had a reputation for making people feel worse, even when he tried to comfort them, so this was different.
“I’m done racing after this year, anyway.
” There it was. He wasn’t offered the job, because the team wanted experience and stability.
Luca was still definitely not the top choice.
Given that a driver was only as good as their last race, he probably wasn’t even in their top ten choices.
But he was the only guy available on short notice.
“I never thought you’d quit, Heka. If I’d had to hazard a guess, you’d be trying to race into your dotage.”
The older man laughed, which was kind of a startling sound because it didn’t happen very often.
“I want to spend more time with my children.” He didn’t say anything about his wife, which figured.
Jocelyn was kind of a bitch, and Luca had guessed that she was the only woman who would put up with Heka’s brusque nature.
“Makes sense. It’s good to see you.” Luca moved on before it all became more awkward.
Since he was a last-minute addition to the team, he’d flown here a day early—straight from the factory car launch at Monza. Yesterday, he’d posed for all of the promotional photos he’d missed back in early February, when he’d still thought he was out of racing for good.
Today, when he walked into the team facility, Ethan would be there. They hadn’t seen each other since the car launch, and the tense energy made him wonder how they were both going to survive the season.
Though his former friend was polished, Luca could sense the enmity underneath his responses to the press, which awakened Luca’s competitive instinct. Maybe this would be a good thing.
He opened the door to Lupo’s facility and ran right into Cece.
Time slowed as he took her in. She was as flawless as she usually was in head-to-toe linen with nary a crease—a contrast to the way she’d appeared undone when she’d showed up at his door.
She pasted a smile on her face but lost it after she looked around to see that there were no cameras.
With a slight shake of her head, she moved around him, careful to avoid touching him at all.
In her brand-new trailer at her brand-new team, Micaela switched off the television.
She felt sick to her stomach, but it wasn’t because she was nervous about making her debut on the grid in testing this weekend.
She felt sick because she had to wear a gown at a gala so that her new team could trot her out to sponsors.
Her new boss, Liam Sullivan, had sent a glam team to deal with her. He knew she’d spent her entire adolescence in a go-kart and then various single seaters, racing against mostly boys. And any signs or symptoms of girliness or softness had been browbeaten out of her by her father a long time ago.
Liam knew all of this intimately, because she’d dated his son for years—until a year ago. And his son was her new teammate.
She wasn’t sure what had possessed her the day Liam had called and offered a seat at Panther.
Part of it was because Lupo had been dicking her around for months; various members of the team had leaked name after name of other potential drivers for the open Lupo seat after she’d been announced as their new driver.