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The Score - The Fear

Mexico has always been one of her favourite events of the year.

The race itself is always fun. It’s a circuit that apes the best of everywhere else – the technical slow corners of Singapore, the sweeping S curves of Silverstone and America, the long straights of Shanghai and Baku – and moulds it into its own thing. But it’s the venue, the crowd, the atmosphere, that is almost incomparable. It’s a carnival in and of itself, where those from around the world come and dress up in gaudy outfits, cowboys and dragons and mythological demons and as the drivers themselves and as each other, donning facepaint and sequined costumes and capes and flags like in Monza and Brazil. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the spirit of the sport, right before the season closer in Korea. In a way, Irene thinks it’s a near-perfect sendoff. It’s everything it needs to be and much, much more.

The weather on the Thursday before race weekend is light and warm even in the colder months. Sitting there under the window of the café three doors down from her hotel she sips her steaming coffee and eats spicy tortillas and watches the afternoon as it passes her by. People in the light flicker like matchstick people. A thin drift of leaves browning and rustflecked by the long months turn and twist and right in the shafts of sunlight and are lost to the roads and the cars drive on by and she is alone and it’s good to be as such.

It comes partly as a welcome surprise to her that all she feels twenty-four hours from practice is a certain nervousness at being so close to the end. It’s the same jitters she gets every year without fail, the icy professionalism replaced by a childlike glee at seeing off her favourite pastime for another season. The only year that was different was 2017, where she had won the title two weeks prior in Abu Dhabi, a dominant and unceremonious finale before Korea had even come around. But now, eleven points behind Seulgi and with it all to play for, the nerves return, but their appearance is alone and without the company of the dread she had as little as three months ago expected to feel. The horror of potentially losing. What it could mean for her life, and perhaps in retrospect that was dramatic to the extreme, overly so, but Irene has never been good with her emotions, bottled or otherwise, clear to her or mired beneath layers of complex self-assuredness and vague notions of what it means to truly be herself. To know who she is and where she stands.

She sits there for a long time. The coffee goes cold and she orders another with a polite smile and a handful of Spanish words learnt from a translation book. She drinks half. The other half goes cold in the cup, no steam, no life to it. The day outside becomes the low evening and the sun grows tired and pinchbeck and the blue dusk sets in cool and cloudy and still the leaves fall from somewhere she knows not where. Her phone reads two missed messages from Wheein. The first, nine minutes ago, saying:

Where are you?

The second, four minutes later:

Nvm. I’ll come find you.

Irene checks her watch to find to her mild surprise it’s just gone seven. The sign on the café door in Spanish told her last orders are at seven thirty. She waves the waitress over and asks politely for another coffee and the waitress smiles a warm and toothy smile and disappears with her halfdrunken coffeecup. When Wheein walks through the door a couple minutes later Irene is helping herself to the coffee, locked or perhaps merely transported into a world of her own design, smiling at nothing, smiling at everything. Seulgi is there even when she isn’t.

‘Thought so,’ Wheein says flatly. She takes her seat across the table and Irene just grins at her, coffeecup perched delicately in her hands, steaming rising in slender coils just in front of her nose. She shifts her arms and the rim of the cup drops to just above her lips and the curve of her pleasant smile makes itself known to Wheein again. ‘This is such a habit of ours,’ she says.

‘What is?’

‘Doing this. Coming to coffee shops, or restaurants, or bars, and just talking. Or just drinking.’

‘I think it’s a habit of everyone,’ Wheein says. ‘Everyone in this sport, I mean. What else is there to do, except get drunk, I suppose? And I can’t be bothered with all that. Too much hassle.’

‘Yeah.’

‘How much is the coffee?’

‘Not much.’

‘Is it good?’

‘Find out for yourself.’

She orders a coffee and sits upright as if correcting herself. The rest of the café is almost empty. An elderly man sits reading a newspaper at the table far down the aisle and the overhead lights hum almost at a muted and orderly tempo and occasionally ceramic plates go crashing into a soapy bowl somewhere in the kitchen with a signature clang. ‘This is good,’ Irene says. ‘I like this. I like Mexico City. I like Mexico. I like this circuit. I like where I am right now.’

‘You sound like you’ve just discovered Nirvana.’

‘Maybe I have.’

‘No, I think you’d know. Good music.’

‘Very funny.’

Wheein bows in mockery and makes to pick up her coffee. ‘I aim to please,’ she says. ‘But seriously, you’re very Zen today. Very at peace with yourself and your surroundings. Or are just putting this on to get me to go away?’

‘If I wanted you to go away, I’d have replied to your texts. And lied to you.’

‘Oh, so you got them anyway? And you just decided to ignore me?’

‘You said you’d come find me. How did you know I’d be here?’

‘Because you weren’t at the hotel bar and you weren’t in the restaurant across the street and you weren’t in your room when I knocked. And you weren’t in Seulgi’s either. So, by power of deduction, really. How is that, by the way?’

‘Is what?’

‘You and Seulgi. Back together yet?’

‘Not quite,’ Irene says, thinking about it again. ‘We have a lot to discuss, though. When it happens.’

‘Which is when?’

‘I don’t know. I told her Mexico or Korea. But I think Korea. Reconciling with her right now would only distract me. In a good way, of course, but still. I can’t be distracted this weekend. I have to win. I just have to.’

‘We have to win, as a team. The constructors’ championship is so close I can almost smell it. You know how close we are to Apex?’

‘Very close.’

‘We could clinch it on Sunday with a one-three finish,’ Wheein says. ‘So it’s all to play for. And Apex could win it if they finish one and two. The chance of that happening here is thankfully quite low.’

‘Power circuit,’ Irene says idly, blowing on her coffee.

‘Yeah, power circuit. As long as we stay near the front we should eat them alive on the straights. But you never know. Stranger things have happened. Look at Singapore – we thought we’d get demolished there, and then…well. You did what you tend to do.’

‘I got lucky with the safety car.’

‘Doesn’t matter, does it? You won. That’s twenty-five points for you as a driver, and twenty-five for us as constructors. That’s what really counts. And this weekend it’ll count a whole lot more. So, you know…any problems with Seulgi still hanging about—’

‘There aren’t any problems with Seulgi.’

‘Sure, sure. But if there were—’

‘There aren’t.’

‘I just meant—’

‘I know what you meant. Fix all my problems before the race so I’m not distracted by anything. But I’m not pretending, Wheein. I’m not lying to you. I feel good for this weekend. Everything to do with me and Seulgi together won’t come into it on race day. I promise you that.’

‘Good,’ Wheein says. ‘That’s good.’

‘Did you want to find me for any particular reason? Or just to hang out? Which isn’t like you, really.’

Wheein shifts in her seat and runs a finger up and down the handle of her coffeecup. She seems for a moment to be distracted by the old man paying at the counter and thanking the serving girl and going on out. Then she says, ‘I wanted to talk to you about Yeri.’

‘About Yeri?’

‘It’s the elephant in the room.’

Irene is quiet, attentive.

‘You know she still hasn’t re-signed her contract for next year, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you signed yours in April.’

‘Yeah,’ Irene says again.

‘I was talking to management earlier. They’ve given her until a week after Korea to make a final decision, stay or go, before they start looking elsewhere. Which leaves me with a number of questions, as you can imagine. And I expect quite a few for you too.’

‘I haven’t really been thinking about it. I haven’t been thinking about much of anything, really.’

‘Cool. I like your shoes, by the way.’

‘Thanks,’ Irene says. She makes a show of stretching her leg out into the aisle so that Wheein can get a better look, as if she hasn’t already. They’re creamcoloured hi-tops with double Velcro straps and a small Irene-designed logo in the shape of a black-and-red bunny on both heels.

‘Are they new?’

‘They’re mine.’

‘What?’

She turns her foot so Wheein can see the Tommy Hilfiger logo on the opposite sides. ‘My new sneaker line,’ she says. ‘Limited edition. They shipped me out a pair a few days ago to see how I feel about them.’

‘And?’

‘I love them,’ Irene says with a proud smile. ‘I never thought I was into fashion until I was, you know? Never had any time to think about it, I was so obsessed with racing. But I’ve told you this before.’

‘Two weeks ago.’

‘Yeah. Sorry.’

‘Feel free, at any time. They’re very nice. You fancy sending a pair my way?’

‘If you pay for them, sure.’

‘Do I get a co-worker’s discount? Or a friend’s one?’

‘No, and no.’

Wheein makes a little pouty face in response and Irene has to stifle a laugh over the rim of her hot coffee. ‘Anyway,’ Wheein says, ‘back to the point at hand. Yeri.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I expect she’ll stay. I think she’s just holding out for a more favourable contract because she knows the bosses want to retain her. I mean, it makes sense. She’s the perfect number-two driver for you right now. She’s fast enough to not lose points for the team and fast enough to challenge you on any given weekend, but—’

‘Not consistent enough to challenge me for a whole season. Yeah, I know. I know this. I’ve seen her drive.’

‘She’s not really a threat to you. Surely you want to keep her onboard as well?’

‘I like her,’ Irene says. ‘She’s great fun. And she’s an excellent driver. I told Seulgi this.’

‘Told her what?’

‘I said she would be champion in a few years. She’s got all the talent of Seulgi or me on any given weekend, like you said. She’s so fast it’s kind of astonishing. She just lacks the racecraft and the experience. And the consistency.’

‘She’s more experienced than Seulgi.’

‘Yeah, but Seulgi is a special case.’

Wheein’s cheeky grin has Irene clarifying. ‘I meant as a racer,’ she says. ‘You can’t compare anyone against Seulgi because she’s one in a billion. There hasn’t been anyone like her since…well.’

‘Since you?’

‘No. I was going to say since Senna, but she doesn’t like that.’

‘Why not?’

‘She wants to be her own woman. Mould her own identity. Doesn’t want to be compared to anyone else.’

‘Makes sense,’ Wheein says. ‘I more I hear about her, the more I like her. From you, I mean. Away from the TV interviews.’

‘She’s pretty swell.’

‘Yeah, sounds like it. Anyway, back to the point yet again – Yeri. Staying or going. I’m leaning on staying.’

‘Me too. I can’t see why she’d go, or where.’

‘Exactly. But in the strange case that she does decide to leave, what then? The bosses are already out looking for replacements. They’ve been doing it since Brazil. Maybe even earlier. And they’ve got a couple names lined up at the minute but nothing solid, so I’m curious.’

‘Curious about what?’

‘About what you think.’

‘I don’t really care,’ Irene says, and it’s the truth. ‘I’ll beat them. Same way I’ve beaten Yeri.’

‘Okay, so, running through it logically – it can’t be Seulgi or Joy, since they’ve already signed contracts for next year, and why would they leave Apex anyway? It can’t be the Racing Line guys, or the Williams guys. It can’t be Cook-Honda either. And both Chamisul drivers have contracts until 2022 at least. So that leaves, who exactly?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Everyone that hasn’t signed a contract yet. That’s both Ferrari guys, both McLaren guys, both Hewitt guys, both Renault. And then there’s the possibility they bring in someone from Formula 2, or someone who’s been out of the sport a while.’

‘Like who?’

‘I heard they were asking Alonso about a possible return.’

Irene sips her coffee. In honesty her mind is elsewhere but Wheein seems either unaware or unable to care. ‘Imagine that,’ she says. ‘You and Fernando Alonso in the same car.’

‘I’d beat him.’

‘Maybe we’ll find out.’

‘Yeri’s not leaving,’ Irene says.

‘Can you talk to her? Just to make sure?’

‘I guess.’

‘Alright. Cool.’

‘Is that all you came to ask me?’

‘Pretty much. I don’t have anything more interesting to say. Coffee’s good, though. So there’s that.’

‘Nothing for tomorrow?’

‘I’ll tell you all that tomorrow.’ She looks at Seulgi and squints and leans half over the desk as if it may offer her some deeper form of interrogative deduction.

‘What?’ Irene asks.

‘You’re thinking about something, aren’t you? Or someone. Is it Seulgi?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Is it going to distract you?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes I’m sure.’

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Is this 20 Questions?’

‘Just three or four, really. Well?’

Irene sighs wistfully. Outside the leaves are still turning and falling in the golden sunset. ‘I was just thinking about how much I love her,’ she says.

‘Really now.’

‘I love her a lot.’

‘Right,’ Wheein says. The coffee in her hands is still piping hot. ‘Think I’m going to head back. Leave you to your idle daydreaming.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Talk to Yeri.’

‘I will. See you tomorrow.’

The opportunity to talk to someone other than Wheein doesn’t present itself at all on Friday or on Saturday morning. By the time practice is over and qualifying is about to start Irene sits in the garage humming to herself and checking the timing boards again and again. Wheein was right. The straights lend themselves to their car spectacularly well. The Apex has the advantage through sector two but everywhere else it’s a one-horse race. She checks the timing board one last time. It’s only practice but it might mean something. She’s in first, Yeri behind her. The gap to Seulgi in third is half a second.

‘Looking good,’ Wheein says over her shoulder.

‘They might be sandbagging. Might have turned their engines down.’

‘Might have, might not. We’re about to find out either way.’

She climbs in and waits patiently while the mechanics configure the car. It’s five minutes before she’s pulling out of the garage and down the end of the pitlane and around the corner to start her first flying lap of the session. The temperature has cooled to barely above zero but the crowd seem to not notice. Long columns of green and red and white smoke in the patterns of the Mexican flag waft about the grandstands and already they’re playing Samba music and slowing for the complex at turns one through three Irene catches sight of someone dressed head to toe in a giant inflatable racing suit and has to stifle a giggle.

The first round is simple and straightforward. All the top teams have their engines muted. It isn’t in the second round either that their true pace is shown. She tops both sessions and Seulgi and Yeri are right behind her, trading places, Seulgi outdriving her car as usual, Yeri with the talent but not the consistency. The car feels good around here. Mexico is a circuit of many surprises and it’s never been Irene’s best – despite three victories – but something is different now. It’s the confidence regained, reborn. It’s the thrill of closing the gap and the comforting knowledge that should she lose, her world is not over.

It comes to her on her outlap in the final round of qualifying suddenly and without fanfare that perhaps she should lose. The thought is dangerous and stupid. It would be easy to life off the throttle five metres too late and miss a corner, perhaps at turn three where the grass would meet her head on, or turn six where the barrier would be equally prompt a greeting, and put herself in sixth or seventh place for qualifying. Seulgi could win the title in twenty-four hours. Nobody could ever prove anything.

She spends a moment on the straight thinking about that. Caught in this tangled web of delusion and borderline insane thinking she barely registers the absurd speed at all. She’s doing three hundred and forty kilometers per hour and no longer are the stands filled with smoke or racing suits or people at all, just secondary blurs in the watercolour image of the world.

I could do it, she mutters, slowing for turn one. The crowd cheer one of the McLaren’s behind her, lap finished, position gained. Allowing Seulgi to win the championship would be the ultimate finale. It would put all Irene’s months of change to the test. A life outside Formula 1, fashion and shoes and old friends and what it means to be real and genuine again, all wagered in the most defining of games. Could I survive losing? What would become of me? Am I truly a better person now? And if I win, will it all be for nothing? Will this growth have been falsified? Victory is victory. What promise of success even in failure could ever be truly tested or verified if that failure is never confronted in the first place?

It isn’t until the fast and sweeping S section of the track at turns nine and ten and eleven that she reminds herself how utterly stupid and terrible an idea it is. The crowd seem to agree. They cheer her past and cheer her as she slows for the right-hander at turn twelve and enters the stadium section to slow again for the hairpin. Her flying lap becomes. The world as it often does falls silent once more. On the straight the speedometer on her digital display touches three hundred and forty-two kilometres per hour. The deceleration into fourth gear for turn one makes her head spin. The man in the racing suit is back, watching her go, lost in seconds.

The first half of the lap is very good. She has the innate insight to know that before the lap has even finished. She takes a smooth line through the S curves and nails the braking point for turn twelve and again for the hairpin. The rear end never slides at all. This year’s car is a winner, a true rival to the Apex.

Reve, she thinks, and suddenly she’s laughing. She crosses the line to a sea of ecstatic faces and knows before Wheein tells her.

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘That felt good.’

A pause for a while longer. Then Wheein says, ‘Pole position. Congrats, Irene. That’s your second pole in a row.’

‘How’s the rest of the grid shaping up?’

‘Yeri’s in second, Seulgi third. Then the usual suspects. We were right. This track is good for this car.’

‘Might be the best. Reve gave it her all, though.’

‘Who?’

‘Nothing,’ Irene mutters, momentarily glad the crowd can’t see her blushing through her helmet.

‘There are a lot of things I want to talk about with her,’ Seulgi says, ‘but they can wait until Korea. I’ve waited this long. I can wait a while longer.’

‘Good,’ says Wendy through the radio, only half listening, eyes glued to the data in front of her on the pitwall. The cars hum impatiently. The crowd do the same. Flurries of smoke fall across the distant grandstands and streamers gold and orange and seablue decorate the upper balconies and Seulgi winces at the pale and heatless sun as they line up on the grid ready for the start. Her right foot is shaking for some reason. In her heart the blood seems to have ceased pumping entirely.

‘Alright,’ Wendy says, ‘you put in a fantastic lap yesterday. Now it’s time to convert that lead into the points you need, and the points we need to keep the hope of the constructors’ trophy alive. We can do this. All we need is for you and Joy to finish first and second.’

‘Oh, so nothing, then.’

‘Not even that. Forget I said that. Just stop them from finishing first and second, or first and third.’

‘That’s not going to be easy at all.’

‘We can do it. I know we can. Two-stop strategy today. Soft, soft, medium. Everyone else in the top ten is doing the same. No rain, no obstructions, just a good clean race. No messing about with pitstops like in Monaco.’

Seulgi isn’t listening. Her hands run with a cold sweat and the hairs on the back of her neck are already standing and the twenty engines burbling in unison sounds like a symphony of evil at the ready. The two white Samsungs glint in the sun ahead of her. An eleven-point lead could change in the blink of an eye but it won’t. She won’t let it. Baku Seulgi would have. Austria Seulgi would have doubted just the same. But people grow and evolve and Seulgi has grown a great deal.

‘Good luck,’ Wendy says as the first light comes on. Her foot is on the accelerator, hand on the wheel clutch. Two more times, she thinks. And then you’ll stand there as champion of the world, with Irene right beside you.

The lights hit four and five and then they’re out and her foot is hard to the floor and suddenly they’re almost at the first corner already. The speed is unbelievable. Mexico’s straight is enormous but they’re down at the far end and weaving through the complex of kinks at turns one two and three and making for turns four and five before the crowd can ever register it. Seulgi is less than half a second behind Yeri and fighting for position. She pulls out to the inside and Yeri cuts her off with a brilliant maneuver and holds second place when slowing for turn six on the same line and does the same slaloming through the S curves. It’s enough to have Seulgi dipping back a slight to preserve her tires, and three laps later even with DRS she can’t get past.

‘Wendy,’ she says. ‘They’re pulling away on the straights.’

‘I know. Just keep at it. We can get them in the corners.’

‘Even if I can get close to them I don’t know if I can overtake them. Our cooling’s not good enough. The car just overheats if I’m stuck behind them for more than, like, three laps.’

‘Less talking,’ Wendy says. ‘You can do this. Come on.’

The soft tires have the extra grip and speed but in the heat of the day they won’t last long at all. Seulgi first begins to feel it only seven laps into the race. Flying down the main straight and slowing again for turn one hard enough to have her tensing her neck she turns in a slight too soon and the oversteer wobbles the back end and she almost takes a lump of grass from the far side of the red kerb with her. The crowd don’t seem to notice it. It’s such a small and insignificant detail in the grand scheme of things, but Seulgi is attuned to all of it. Every minor movement, every shake, judder, twitch. Reve is as much a part of her body as anything else.

‘Alright,’ Wendy says. ‘How are the tires feeling?’

‘I can keep going for now. They’re not perfect but I can keep going.’

‘We’re only seven laps in.’

‘I know. It’s going to be hard today.’

‘The gap’s at two and a half seconds,’ Wendy says, but it isn’t information that Seulgi needs. A simple look ahead of her tells her as much. Yeri is right there, barreling down toward the S curves at turns eight and nine, the blue of the Samsung’s rear wing almost cobalt in the pale winking of the sun. And Irene is a few seconds up the road from her.

‘Should I keep the gap?’ Seulgi asks.

There’s a long silence. She’s almost at the stadium hairpin when Wendy cuts in again through the radio to reply, ‘How much faster do you think you can go?’

‘I can close her down before the pit stops, but I don’t think I can get past her. They’re too fast on the straights, even with DRS. And whenever I get close in the corners the car overheats again.’

‘Okay. Alright.’

She does another lap before Wendy says anything again. Down the main straight the crowd are rabid as she sails by and cheering her on and she brakes in time for turn one to feel that same oversteer run her almost off the kerb. ‘Wendy,’ she says. ‘Talk to me. What do you want me to do?’

The quiet again. Seulgi holds her breath. She’s at turn four when Wendy says, ‘Can you get the gap down to about a second?’

‘A second?’

‘That way you’ll be far enough away to not suffer the effects of her dirty air too much and we can undercut her in the pits. And we can get out ahead of her.’

‘Alright,’ Seulgi says. ‘But don’t screw this up. Make sure the pitstop is perfect.’

‘Yeah. Will do.’

By lap fifteen the distance to Yeri ahead of her is – as Wendy had asked for – just over a second. It’s a testament to both Seulgi’s absurd talent and how in tune she is to the limits of the car that she can do this so frequently and with such little necessary support. She coasts around the corner at the final turn and back out onto the straight and she’s close enough to have DRS and her rear wing opens and surging forward the gap is down to half a second and the world becomes a blur. But it isn’t quite enough. The straight is long but it must end, and as she slows and catches the oversteer again at turn one Yeri’s lead is still just over half a second and Seulgi is forced to back off.

‘Wendy,’ she mutters, out of breath. ‘Am I boxing this lap?’

‘How are the tires?’

‘Not great. My times are going to start falling off. And I can’t get past her.’

A long pause on the other end. Then: ‘Yeah. Mode Box. Pit this lap, please.’

She’s a second behind Yeri when she peels into the pits. Yeri and Irene are both still out on the circuit. The stop is as good as they could have hoped for, two seconds for four tires and a smooth release. On the back straight the new set of soft tires have so much more grip that no longer does Seulgi feel the oversteer at all.

‘Both the Samsungs stayed out,’ Wendy says.

‘I know. I saw them. Will this lap be fast enough?’

‘I don’t know. Make it count, Seulgi. You’ve got just over a second and a half to make up.’

A second and a half is a long time, but nothing is impossible for Seulgi. On her outlap she throws it through the corners just that bit harder. The tires won’t thank her but all she’s thinking is: I can do this. No more playing around. I can really do this.

The crowd hold their breath. She’s rough and sloppy and obscenely fast through turns sixteen and seventeen and halfway down the main straight she spots Yeri coming out of the pits and Irene only a few seconds ahead of her at the first right-hander. ‘C’mon,’ she mutters. Reve gives her everything she has to give. She’s going three hundred and thirty kilometres per hour and Yeri is only now speeding up out of the pitlane and it’s so very close and the crowd are out of their seats as they slow for turn one, Seulgi ahead by barely a front wing, Yeri on the outside line with a worse exit.

She’s done it. Even before Wendy and the crowd cheer her on she glances back in her mirror and sees that, for now at least, Yeri is behind her.

‘Okay!’ Wendy says. ‘What a lap! I knew you could do it. You know what time it is now, right?’

‘Time to get that other Samsung.’

‘You're damn right it is. You can do it.’

‘Has she already pitted? Why am I so close to her?’

‘The Samsungs double stacked in the pits. She’s on new softs just like you. That’s why Yeri was delayed about half a second.’

‘Guess we should count our stars lucky, then.’

‘Focus, Seulgi. You’ve got this.’

By lap thirty the sun feels much hotter on the back of her neck, almost painfully so. She’s four seconds shy of Irene and Yeri is right behind her, the reverse of their predicament earlier. Much faster on the straights but with nowhere near the cornering speed of the Apex in the tight corners. One glimpse in her mirror and Seulgi can’t find Joy anywhere. She takes turn six wide and asks over the radio, ‘Where’s Joy?’

‘She’s fallen back. She’s in fourth.’

‘Should I be worried?’

‘No. She’s on a different strategy to you. Worry about your own race.’

‘When am I pitting?’

A small quiet as she turns in at the hairpin and all of sudden Yeri is right there again, enormous in her rearview mirror. Wendy says, ‘We think lap thirty-six. Can you give us six more laps on these tires?’

‘Yeah. I can.’

‘Good. Keep it up.’

The next five laps are almost identical. It isn’t until she’s on the main straight pursuing Irene to start her thirty-sixth lap that she realises Yeri is nowhere to be seen behind her. And before she can even ask, Wendy’s voice breaks up the static to say, ‘She’s just boxed. They're trying the undercut like we did before. She’s got about one point two seconds deficit to make up on her outlap, so you need to really push it through these next few corners to keep the gas. ERS to max, fuel mode four.’

It’s the first time in the race the jitters get to her. The confidence is still there but it’s adrenaline, too, the nerves of not quite knowing what’s going to happen next. Irene peels into the pitlane at the end of the lap and Seulgi follows close behind, a three and a half second gap, her hands trembling on the wheel, wincing into the sunlight. The second and final stop is just as good – two seconds and clean. But when she comes out and speeds up for the end of the straight Irene is still four seconds ahead of her and Yeri is right there, as if by some cruel reversal of fortunes their fates have been switched, large enough in Seulgi’s mirror to startle her. She takes the inside line and Yeri has to go wide and they’re side by side powering onto the straight and not even Wendy is saying anything anymore.

At turn four Seulgi pushes it. She dares to brake a slight later, trusting entirely in the ability of Reve to do what she commands, but Yeri does the same. They’re neck and neck at turn five and this time Yeri has the inside line and she understeers just enough that Seulgi is forced wide to avoid contact. Her front left tire runs through the grass in a plume of dust and dirt and wobbles over the kerb and is flat again. It’s a momentary slowdown, but it’s enough. Yeri is ahead.

‘Wendy!’ she says, voice urgent and catching in .

‘Yeah. I saw it.’

‘She didn’t leave me a car’s width there!’

‘We’re reviewing the footage now.’

‘She should give back the position.’

For the next eight laps the radio silence is like a death knoll. The gap grows to three seconds, Seulgi preserving her tires and cooling the engine, Yeri building a gap, and then Wendy says, ‘Stewards have gone over the replay from that little incident and they’ve decided no penalty.’

‘What? Are you serious?’

‘Focus.’

‘I am focused. I’ll stay focused. I just think—’

‘I know,’ Wendy says, and it’s the end of the conversation. Seulgi knows it as well. It’s the job of the racing driver to eek out any possible advantage, however small, however imagined or falsified, and this is one of those times. Perhaps Yeri ran her out of road on purpose or perhaps not. Or perhaps she was ahead to begin with and the blame lies with Seulgi in not conceding the position. What matters is that Seulgi argues it anyway.

By lap fifty-five nothing has changed at all. She’s three seconds or so shy of Yeri and Irene is six seconds out in front and the tires are still good but there’s not that much more to give without ruining the car and she knows it. But the difference in attitude is something that Seulgi notices in herself long before the end of the race. Thinking: Sometimes these things happen. The Samsung is the better car today. I can’t do much better than that.

Lap sixty of seventy-one and Irene has pulled out an extra second in the lead. Slowing to almost a crawl for the hairpin in the stadium Seulgi glances forward and sees Yeri three seconds ahead of her on equal tires and maintaining her speed. It’s then, right there at the hairpin, that it hits her again. The confidence has not wavered at all. No longer does she tell Wendy it’s an impossibility. That her talent is far outstripped by those around her. The word failure has not been used in months. Win, lose, crash. And you can’t win them all.

The crowd seem to celebrate forever. Five laps from the end the energy propels Seulgi forward. They want to see more. They paid to see Dynamite. Yeri is four seconds up the road and her tire management isn’t as good as Seulgi’s and Seulgi jumps onto the radio as soon as she crosses the line to start sixty-seven to say, ‘I need more power. Give me everything you’ve got. I’ll be careful about the overheating, don’t worry. I won’t do anything stupid.’

A podium finish is a certainty. Joy isn’t remotely close to challenging her now, different strategy or not. Wendy says, ‘Mode eleven. Engine mode eleven. You’ve got full power until the end of the race. Qualifying mode. Go and get that Samsung.’

‘C’mon, Reve,’ she mumbles. She pulls out eight tenths of a second in sector two alone, but the Samsungs still have the straight-line speed. With two laps to go the gap is down to one point eight seconds. She throws the front end through turns eleven and twelve so violently she has to apply a generous helping of opposite lock to stop the car pivoting and spinning out of the race. It’s green and white and red in the grandstands. It’s orange and white, white and blue, Apex and Samsung. DYNAMITE read the banners.

‘C’mon.’

The final lap begins. She’s close enough to have DRS on the main straight and the additional speed her forward and her head is throbbing and she’s fighting against the G-force and gaining and gaining still and by the end of the main straight she’s half a second behind Yeri. The next straight is the last one. Half a second becomes two tenths, and she’s close enough to almost scratch the back of Yeri’s car with her front wing, but it isn’t quite there. The crowd hold their breath as they slow fully for the tight turn four. Eighteen months ago Seulgi would have thrown the car down the inside and locked up her brakes and crashed and cost them both the race. Instead she backs off and allows Yeri the space to comfortably power out and is soon gone. A minute later they cross the line, Yeri second and Seulgi third, with nothing having changed at all.

The silence on the radio is telling. ‘Wendy?’ she says. ‘You there?’

‘Yeah,’ Wendy says gently. ‘Sorry. That was a really great drive. Well done. Joy finished P4 behind you.’

‘Did we lose?’

‘Yeah, we lost. Samsung won the championship. But you can still beat Irene. You’re still in the lead. You’ve still got this.’

‘I know I do,’ Seulgi says, and it leaves almost as a shock. One race to go. In the garage the season leaderboard reads:

SEULGI KANG – 356

IRENE BAE – 355

YERI KIM – 311

She takes a good long look at it. Thirty-five points has become just one but she’s still leading, still smiling.

‘The stewards might want to call you into their office later,’ Wendy says. ‘About that little incident with Yeri.’

‘It was nothing,’ Seulgi replies. ‘Just one of those things. Hard racing is all. Fair and square.’

‘She ran you onto the grass. You said it yourself – she didn’t leave you a car’s width.’

‘It is what it is. I should’ve backed out of there earlier. Or taken a better line on the straight. I was as much to blame as her.’

‘Well.’ Wendy only shrugs. ‘If you say so.’

They take another moment to look at the leaderboards. Samsung have won, but Irene has not. One point and one race to go.

‘This is it,’ Wendy says, and the gravity of it begins to finally settle in. ‘Everything on the line. Just like last year.’

‘Yeah. Win, lose, or crash.’

The first thing she does when she opens the door is say, ‘No.’

The second thing she does is laugh.

‘C’mon,’ Yeri says, very drunk and very loud and wearing an enormous Mexican sombrero. It takes Irene a moment to realise she’s wearing comically oversized sunglasses as well. She holds up an opened bottle of tequila in one hand and a plastic shot glass in the other.

‘No. Absolutely not.’

‘We won!’ Yeri says, loud enough that Irene has to put a finger to own lips to remind her to be quiet. And in a whisper Yeri says, ‘We won. Five straight constructors’ titles. Victory to us!’

‘I’m not drinking whatever’s in that.’

‘It’s just tequila.’

‘Just tequila?’

‘For now, yeah.’

‘What does that mean? For now?’

‘C’mon,’ Yeri slurs, elongating the word far beyond its appropriate length. She grabs Irene by the arm and pulls her out into the corridor and Irene smells her immediately, rich perfume and tequila and chewing gum and, strangely, lemons. ‘Have you been doing shots?’ Irene says.

‘A few. And I’m not—’ a hiccup. A second hiccup. A long pause. Then: ‘I’m not the only one.’

‘I bet.’

‘We’re all downstairs. We’ve been waiting for you. C’mon. Just one or two. To celebrate.’

Irene just looks at her. It might be pitiful if it were not so hilarious. ‘Alright,’ she says, stifling another bout of laughter. ‘After you, cowboy.’

‘Cowgirl, thank you very much.’

She leads Irene down to the bar by the hand. Draped in a handknitted blue cape and with her sombrero she looks like a caricature from an old Western, like a small and shamelessly intoxicated Korean John Wayne. Irene says hi to more than a dozen people, shimmying her way past the stools and the tables hand in hand with Yeri and toward the back of the room. The bar is as full as she’s ever seen a bar be. It stinks of every possible alcohol and through the speakers they’re playing cheesy eighties music. They find Wheein over in a booth in the corner, slumped against the desk and half asleep, three empty shot glasses and a plastic tray of lemon slices and a salt shaker on the table in front of her. And a small puddle of spilt tequila she has decided for some reason to rest her arm in.

Yeri prods her head as if she were an exhibit in a zoo. ‘Wakey wakey,’ she mumbles, too drunk to enunciate. Wheein rises from her thousand-year slumber like a mutant. She looks at Yeri and at Irene and wipes her eyes and says, ‘What time is it?’

‘Dunno. Who cares?’

‘Jesus,’ Irene says, ‘look at you. I thought you didn’t get drunk.’

‘I don’t,’ says Wheein.

‘You weren’t like this last year when we won. Or 2018. Or 2017 for that matter.’

‘Yeah, well. People change.’

‘C’mon,’ Yeri says. She grabs the three shot glasses and pours them and spills all three and waves a slice of lemon in front of both their faces.

‘Wait,’ Wheein burbles, and takes her slice of lemon anyway.

Yeri holds her glass up in front of her. ‘Salud.’

‘Salud.’

‘Salud,’ says Irene, still giggling. Thinking: I’ll just have one. To take the edge off. Two hours later and the clock strikes midnight and she’s deep into talking about Seulgi again, explaining to her colleagues that Seulgi is the best woman she has ever met or ever will meet and she loves her very much and Seulgi is very talented and very cool and good at driving fast cars, closing her eyes and grinning like an idiot at nothing and straining to be heard over the music and the partying in the rest of the bar.

‘I love her,’ she says, none of the words coming out right. Her breath smells of tequila and lemon. She her lips and tastes a hint of salt. ‘I love her lots and lots. And do you know what? I’m okay with losing. I don’t want to lose, but I’m okay with it. I can survive. I’ve got things now. Cool things. Things I now like. Hey, check out my shoes. See? Because I love her and now I love myself. I’ve never loved myself before, but now I do. I love myself. And I love myself because she told me to love myself and I love her for loving me. Which makes me love her more, because my love for myself is because of her love of me. I love. Don’t you just love? Don’t you? Wheein? Yeri?’

And upon closer inspection it seems that Wheein is asleep or perhaps unfortunately no longer of this world and Yeri is gone and has been gone for more than an hour. She grabs the bottle of tequila and holds it up to better inspect it in the dim red light. About a third of the bottle left, surprisingly. The shot glasses sticky and empty and quite rank on the table. Slowly she pours all three to the brim.

‘This one’s for me,’ she says. ‘This one’s for Seulgi. And this one’s for us. Wherever that may take us. Salud, Seulgi, my love. Salud.’