Sunday

The race grid was assembled, fans on from one of the techs blowing cold air into Hugo's cockpit, and the fans loud as ever in Melbourne. The theatrics of F1 were always exciting, always heart pumping and made it all even just that more exciting.
"Comms check, Hugo. Happy with our strategy?" The engineer's voice was soothing, and with the helmet comms, almost too loud without the car alive just yet.
"Yep, happy. Let's keep it that way, depending on what happens out there. Let's go." Hugo replied, taking a strong sip of water from the drink, the precious, precious drink. That wasn't pissing on his floor, or not working, no, it did it's job, because he didn't have a set of engineers for tools. Even if Valkyrie was a poor team, at least they didn't fuck up the drink.

And before anything else was said and done, the crew were packing up and away, and moving aside as the lights started, readying all for the formation lap. The car was running as the cars in front began to pull away, and in slot, so did Hugo. This was it. F1, and it was coming up. Through the corners he warmed the tyres, well and truly now only thinking about his own race. Kasumi was on the row behind, but no less of a threat, right there and ready to pounce on a bad start. He wasn't going to let that happen. But then again, nobody does and it still happens.

Hugo brought the car around the last corner, and with that, parked into his grid slot, the extra two cars on grid an unusual appearance after almost 6 years without. But here they were, Valkyrie Racing were here to bring up the rear and then some, and maybe even score some shockers. Paddle clutch held, the burgandy and green helmeted Portuguese saw the bank of red lights come on, and taking a deep exhale, counted it internally. One, two, three, four. Gone. And throttle was half in, clutch was released, and from twenty-two F1 cars the noise of mechanical insanity began.