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batsplat · 3 months

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motogp scholar professor batsplat, a quastion from the audience please!

regarding vale's retirement, i heard that him getting covid made the desicion easier for him, but i was wondering whether marc being out of contention due to the whole arm situation also helped with vale's retirement?

as in, perhaps having marc in front of him the whole time at the end of his career helped vale (at least partially) to have the motivation to continue even if he might not be as competitive as before, because there was that hope that he might still be able to beat marc one year?

i would love to get your opinion on that!! <3

(also thanks for everything you do for motogpblr, i learned so much about the history of the sport just through your posts; one day i WILL make the excel sheet to organize all your posts thematically!!)

ahh that's so sweet!! and okay, this is a tough but interesting one. the short and simple answer is 'almost certainly unrelated, given the timing of valentino's competitive decline and marc's injury'. but that's the boring answer, and it only relates to the decision to retire itself... there's a broader conversation to be had here about how valentino motivated himself and how that interacted with the marc feud during his last few years in the premier class. so it does make sense to zoom out a bit here, and look at how valentino was motivating himself throughout his time in the premier class tour. which is obviously a big topic, going to keep things relatively brief... the main point here is that, yes, valentino does absolutely have form in needing new challenges and rivals to motivate himself - but given what the competitive picture looked like post-2015, marc probably wasn't his primary motivation

so let's get into it: challenges and rivals. it's a bit of a cliche to say valentino needed enemies - and while I do think it's a little more complicated than that, valentino did obviously use obstacles as a source of motivation throughout his time in the sport. look at the switch to yamaha, which... his life would've been a lot easier if he hadn't done that, but he did it anyway. in a way, he does have a bit of a tendency to set up an obstacle course for himself. which isn't to say this is all self-sabotage... he needs a bit more than 'pure' winning to get himself going, which is just about who he is as a competitor! there's a bunch of reasons why he made the switch to yamaha, but part of it was about finding the culture of winning at honda stifling and oppressive... to the point where he was no longer finding joy in racing. it was about no longer being able to find meaning in his victories. going to yamaha was a massive, crazy risk - one that in all likelihood should have cost him at least the 2004 title... but he did it anyway, because he wanted to write his own narrative and win on his own terms and was hungry for a proper fight. not gonna rehash this topic any further here, there's more somewhere in the sete post including links to the relevant bits of the autobiography

etc etc. so it's partly about finding a new challenge, and partly about spiting your rivals who'd been talking up your bike advantage these past few years. it's worth pointing out that the f1 rumours (and testing) properly get going when he's winning with the yamaha... obviously it's far too simplistic to say he decided against f1 because he started losing in motogp, but I don't think it's a complete coincidence the rumours really gather momentum in 2005 (his most dominant season) and then he decides against the move in late 2006-ish, eventually fully recommitting to motogp in 2007. there's a late 2008 piece on why he stayed put that talks about the differences between car and bike racing:

that's the excitement, right? that's what he's all doing it for, figuring out a way to go faster, how to make the difference himself (rather than letting his machinery do work for him)... like when (as oxley points out in the piece) he's suddenly turning the tables on casey and inflicting a brutal defeat on his great rival at laguna 2008. it's "something undiscovered"... until valentino manages to discover it anyway, to find that little bit extra to win that race. it's that kind of fight that keeps him going, more than anything else - and it's all the more satisfying because casey made his life so bloody hard. so he flirts with f1 when he's winning five premier class titles in a row, and then turns his back when he's actually losing in motogp. sure, you can say he would've rejected f1 eventually anyway, but the initial temptation of f1 was undoubtedly about finding a new challenge at a time where he'd already conquered motogp. what does that tell you about him and his source of motivation, do you think?

(this isn't really relevant, but as I said in the tags under this post I do think there's a bit of a contrast with marc here and how comfortable they both are in their own dominance. valentino's not a four year deal type of guy, just too restless and hungry for new sources of motivation)

so you go from someone who has been flirting with retirement from motogp since the mid-noughties to someone who sticks around until 2021. of course, playing with the idea of retirement is one thing, maybe he never would've gone through with it... still, you do have to wonder whether the emergence of the aliens ended up significantly extending his career. after a 2007 season where he was dealing with all manner of off-track distraction, he's completely focused again in 2008, determined to take back his throne from casey. and then it's beating his hungry young teammate, and then coming back from the leg injury... the ducati project at the end of the day is part of the same pattern. yes, there was his irritation at yamaha increasingly putting their faith in jorge, yes, there was the italian romance of it all, how much fans and the press wanted him to make that switch... but it was also another challenge, right? he's a restless guy, he needs something new, something exciting to keep him going. when you read how he talks about his 2003 choice between yamaha and ducati, you can't help but think he should've listened to his own advice and remember precisely why he had rejected ducati back then. that they were too similar to honda, too disinterested in listening to their riders, that it was going to be harder to make a massive difference as an individual rider there - and of course, the general trend in motogp over the past twenty years has gradually moved away from riders making the difference both in terms of performance and bike development. it's always important to remember that valentino's failure at ducati wasn't so much a failure in riding as it was one in bike development. could casey have done more with that bike in 2011-12? yeah, sure - but if you're using teammate hayden as a rough baseline then you're probably looking at a bike that's even worse than casey's was, which casey wasn't getting anywhere close to title contention in 2010. the issue was that valentino had thought that he could fix that bike - and while obviously he did influence that project, it was still several years away from being particularly close to being fixed. those two years are all about frustration, of trying to make changes to the bike and nothing working... which was enough to make valentino willing to accept yamaha's terms as long as he could get back to a point where he was competitive again. because he had begun to doubt himself, because after two miserable years of injury, a bike that oscillated between throwing him off and just being slow, the tragedy he and the sport suffered at sepang 2011... well, more than anything else, he just wanted to enjoy himself again

which brings us to marc. for the series as a whole, marc brought some much needed life and energy back into proceedings. as is always important to remember, valentino in early 2013 had no idea if he'd be able to compete for a title again. in the very first race, he got some tentative confirmation that he'd be able to fight with his successor. which, you know, that will have been genuinely exciting for valentino in and of itself... it's not like he's just pretending every time he says he enjoys the racing in 2013-14 or is stewing in bitterness or whatever. of course he loves winning, but what he needs more than anything else is the fight. of course he will have gotten frustrated at just how much marc was beating him - but it's not quite so simple, is it? in late 2013, perpetually stuck in fourth place, he's openly acknowledging that if his results don't get better he will be retiring. then, in early 2014, marc is winning every single race and valentino is more than happy to announce he'll continue on in the series. why is he suddenly far cheerier in 2014, given he still wasn't winning races until relatively late in the season? just because he's beating jorge and dani more often now? because he loves podiums so much? because he believes marc might eventually slip up and give him another real shot at a title? well, I doubt any of those things will have hurt his mood, but at the end of the day the main thing for him was that he's able to fight with these guys again! even when he's losing those marc duels, he's enjoying them! at this stage, he's entirely willing to let marc play heir to the throne. it happens to everyone, right, and could it happen in a more flattering way than against someone who hero worships you and has built himself in your image? besides, he did like marc. as ever, it would've all been a lot easier if he hadn't

and then you get 2015, which. let's just skip over that, I talked here about the effect of valentino realising he could become a title contender again, etc etc. the point is that marc will have helped valentino's motivation upon entry to the premier class, but not in a particularly malicious way. obviously, post-2015, valentino is no longer so kindly inclined towards marc, and we have already established that he does use his rivals to fire himself up... but before we get into that, it's worth just quickly establishing for how long valentino would reasonably have expected to still be competitive against marc. if beating marc was his motivation, then how long could he really have clung onto that to keep himself going?

in 2016, valentino was a title contender and could realistically dream of getting immediate revenge for the previous year. the general narrative in the paddock was that he was actually faster than he had been the year before, with his dominant victory from pole at jerez not remotely resembling any victory he'd had since, like, assen 2009 (his 100th win, exceedingly dull). his qualifying was considerably more competitive than it had been the year before and initially it looked like the switch to michelins actually rather suited both the yamaha and his own riding style. (this became progressively less true over the subsequent years, but let's not get into that.) his title challenge took a serious blow when his engine went kaput at mugello, a race in which he could have well scored 25 points (plus deprived his rivals of some points) and at worst would've scored 16. despite the dramatic catalunya victory, he did increasingly have to concede this title bid was a long shot - and then it did kinda fall apart for various reasons during the middle stretch of the season. in 2017, again he's a title contender and is unexpectedly leading the standings early in the year going back to europe. he bangs himself up in two separate motocross accidents that year (both right before the italian races for whatever reason) and in the second one breaks his leg again, which means it's kinda game over. (he said the yamaha wouldn't have had the performance in it to fight with the other two bikes late in the season and he's probably correct, but, y'know, would've still been more fun to see!! valentino!!) in 2018... well, he's the closest thing marc has to a challenger, and there's plenty of individually really impressive performances in there without much to show for it... crucially, I think there's enough there that he would've felt that if he had a better bike than the yamaha that year, then he could at least have a shot at beating marc? until late 2018, on pure performance alone it felt like he was at least still 'in the mix' as one of the top riders, and then you just have to sort of bet on what version of marc + honda shows up in any given year

the issue is that 2019 is the first year where you can definitively say this is no longer the case - and that's the reason why I don't think marc's injury could have influenced valentino's eventual decision too strongly. this is when valentino's time was finally running out, he was at last being clearly outperformed by the other yamaha riders, and valentino did understand all this... thing is, he'd made all these comebacks before, so why not back yourself to eventually get to grips with this new version of the sport once again? plus, he was also just determined to get anything he had left out of himself. he switched crew chiefs in 2020, he accepted a demotion to petronas, he was determined to give it one more shot... and while covid partly prompted his retirement, by the same token it also made the 2020 season so weird it became a lot harder to retire at the end of that year. but at this point, his realistic aims were far more modest than another title: all he wanted was to compete somewhere close to the front of the field, to be fighting it out with the top riders. and because he realised he loved it so much... even when he could no longer do that, he still struggled to step away. from the timing, marc's injury can't really have played too big a role in that - because by the time marc got injured, it would've been basically impossible for valentino to compete with him in any case

that's the simple answer: given the way the latter stages of valentino's career played out, the two things were unconnected and valentino's career would've ended at the same time even if marc had been there. of course, there's a little more to it than that. first of all, of course it's all well and good to point to what valentino actually said at the time and argue he knew that realistically he wasn't going to compete for another title, but deep down surely there was always going to be just that sliver of hope. a lot of valentino's career had been about defying the odds - within individual races, of course, but also the switch to yamaha, coming back after two duds in 2008, and then being a title contender in 2015. his longevity defied the odds... he'd bounced back from rough periods, even when he didn't entirely believe himself he'd be able to. that sole 2020 podium came at a time where he admitted to doubting himself - but once again he'd been able to find something more within himself (in a truly gruelling race). if you've done all that, doesn't a part of you believe that maybe you can still steal a little more time from your career? that maybe you can even still take on marc? well, yes, sure... but not by 2021. whatever marc does during this time period, by this point it is basically over for valentino. he maybe could have prolonged his time in the premier clas... but not to fight for marc. he would've known it was impossible

so, that's the precise timing of the retirement dealt with. let's flip the question and ask if marc made valentino continue for so long in the sport in the first place. on the whole, I do reckon it was the dream of a tenth title that kept him motivated more than it was marc specifically. the first reason is about how big a motivation that tenth title was in and of itself, given what it represented. there is nothing meaningful in and of itself about the number 'ten' beyond 'it sounds nice' - but he wasn't supposed to be able to fight for it. this was about unexpectedly being competitive again, surprising both the world and himself, about proving everyone else wrong (including marc)... in the literal sense, in 2015 he had proven that he was theoretically capable of beating marc, both on-track and over the course of a season - it's just that he fell short in winning the actual title. the tenth is so painful because of how close it was, and what it would have represented. the second reason for why the 10th title trumps marc is that post-2015, he does mostly shy away from using marc as a direct source of motivation. obviously, part of this was just adjusting his public rhetoric to how radioactive the whole controversy had become, with valentino spending the better part of two years mostly steering clear of the whole drama. but it's not just about public perception! it does also reflect how he had to set all this stuff aside to be able to properly compete (more on this here). he kinda had to try and tell himself that it wasn't just about beating marc. there's really only so much stewing in bitterness anyone can do when they're attempting to secure a title... of course he would've loved to beat marc over the course of a season again, he would've love to win in a direct title fight - but in terms of what was more influential in spurring him on on a macro level, I reckon it's the tenth

also, in blunt terms, if valentino had built his entire motivation as a racer around beating marc, he would've gone insane in the few years post-2015. his most interesting season in that regard is 2018, because that one is in the in-between zone where (unlike the years before) he knows he's not able to fight the title but (unlike the years that follow it) you can completely plausibly argue that he as a rider would still be capable of doing so, with the right machinery. which means it's like... buddy, how are you still doing this..? yamaha is in the wilderness! the guy who you reopened a feud with earlier on this year is dominating the sport! you're putting in some really strong performances that are bagging you pee five! you have won nine titles, you have all these records, yamaha doesn't give the vibe of an organisation that's really got its shit together and even if it did, you'd still have to deal with the prime version of a bloke you're perfectly aware is ridiculously good. why are you still here? how do you still CARE this much to show up every weekend to put your heart and soul into riding this bike and providing feedback for it and attempting to get yamaha out of this hole? after all you've done, how are you still fighting this hard with so, so little to show for it?

here's an excerpt from a post-assen 2017 write up;

this is obviously more poignant in retrospect, knowing it was to be his final race victory. even at a time when a tenth title was looking more and more unlikely, he was still being spurred on by just the hope of winning, even if it's 'only' races... and in the end, he had realised that feeling of winning meant more to him in this sport than it ever could in any other. failing that, podiums are something special. failing that, just the fight with other riders in itself keeps him going. that's something that goes beyond marc, though of course he is part of the picture here. best of all is beating marc... but he didn't not love the battles he lost to marc. something like phillip island 2017 - of course he enjoyed it, you can tell it so clearly from everything about him after the race. he still relished fighting marc, even when marc won. and at the end of the day, it's always important to remember everyone expected marc to catch that valentino title count. valentino expected it and openly acknowledged it - and, again, if you're going out there and competing in a sport that's dominated by a guy you hate, you do just kinda have to make your peace with it! valentino always understood how good marc was, that marc was the great of that era, that marc was entirely deserving of this status as a rider. and he had to gradually relinquish that quest for a tenth title... but even while he hadn't, I reckon he had to make sure to separate that out in his head from the radioactive mess that was the marc relationship. he did all he could to ignore marc's importance as a rival, and instead stressed only what marc had done to him personally. obviously, in reality 'valentino winning titles' and 'marc's title count creeping up' by definition aren't separate conversations, but valentino had to do his best to focus on himself. no focusing on getting one over marc marquez specifically

in the end, in terms of motivation I suspect marc did more to help out valentino at the start of their time together than towards the end (setting aside who would've won the titles in marc's absence). that's the period right after the ducati low point, where valentino wasn't really enjoying racing any more. marc joining the premier class coincides with valentino's return to yamaha and the resulting competitive bump that would've helped valentino's motivation anyway, but it's pretty obvious that marc was the rival who vale most enjoyed fighting. part of that's about wanting to test yourself against the new guy, part of that's down to a shared racing philosophy that separated them from the other aliens. of course, marc is also a source of motivation in 2015 - and in several ways, I imagine valentino would've preferred marc to remain his primary title rival that year. after that, sure, especially at the start valentino did very much want to get revenge over marc (and it's reflected in his early 2016 rhetoric), but he would have had to exert a certain amount of mental discipline to avoid the marc feud from becoming his primary motivation. if the marc injury had come a bit earlier, it would've provided valentino an opportunity that wouldn't have negatively affected his motivation... instead, he would've fought even harder to take advantage of it, and you'd imagine the 2017-18 version of him would've had a pretty decent shot at the title in 2020 with marc gone. (disclaimer: this is not how sports works, you can't just go around transposing performance levels from previous years, it's only a hypothetical.) but the competitive decline very much already predated marc's injury. of course, it could have been exacerbated by marc's absence, but there's no evidence for it

did the possibility he might be able to beat marc again give him something to fire himself up after 2015? maybe, though after 2016 I imagine he tucked it away. this is the kind of thing he would've been happy to use if it had come down to it, just like he did in 2015, but failing that... much of 2016-17 is about putting his bitterness over what happened to one side for his own sake, which is part of the reason why you get the rapprochement with marc. even after the relationship goes kaput again in 2018, I don't personally believe it changes much in how valentino went about motivating himself in those days. on a week-to-week level, resentment would've just hurt valentino. and by the time marc was out of the picture, he was simply too uncompetitive for it to matter. of course the mere possibility of one day beating marc again will never have quite left him... but in a way, there was already something to treasure in being able to fight a rider like marc at all. valentino lost that ability and then marc got his injury and that was that

#and yeah that's so lovely... icl i did make a note of the posts i feel like i'm linking back to most often for convenience sake #astirian #//#brr brr #batsplat responds #I do LIKE the idea similarly to how I like the idea that casey's emergence was what ensured valentino wouldn't retire #basically i think if he'd had his 2019 season in 2020 you could sell me on the causal link. but the decline was already too clear imo #idol tag

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cieloclercs · 1 year

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𝐬𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐚𝐝𝐞 , cl16 — chapter five

pairing. charles leclerc x senna!oc part. 5/? warnings. basically just pure angst 🫠 yeah it’s gonna be like that for a while 😭 swearing, arthur is such an icon in this icl word count. 5.7k

SAUDADE. in which childhood rivals turned best friends realise they were always meant to be something more

05. everything changes (nothing changes)

author’s note. so i’ve had this chapter written for about 2 months. no i don’t have an excuse as to why i haven’t posted it yet 🫠 but i figured i’m going through a bit of a dry spell in my writing at the moment so i may as well post it 😭 hope you guys enjoy, and as always, please leave a comment or reblog if you did !! <3

read it on wattpad!

previous: chapter four next ➜ chapter six

Nice Côte d'Azur Airport 8 February 2021

NOA DOESN’T SEE Charles for another two weeks. She doesn’t hear from him either, not including his brief message confirming her flight’s arrival time. He’s giving her space, just as promised, and she finds herself grateful for that. The time in between their meeting at the café and the looming date of her temporary move to Monaco is for setting the record straight. When Noa breaks the news to her parents, they immediately assume the best of the situation – they’ve patched things up, got over themselves and finally rekindled their friendship. She flushes bright red when she has to cut off her mother’s delighted cheers, and her heart aches to see the grin on her face fall. We’re not friends, she tells them firmly, despite the pain it causes her. Noa is doing this for her career, not for some distant, nostalgic memory of the boy she’d once thought the world of. No. It’s her turn to be selfish for once.

Flávia is understandably upset. Just as Pascale considers Noa to be like her daughter, she has always viewed Charles as a second son. Even though she tries to deny it on several occasions over the weeks before Noa’s flight to Monaco, she isn’t stupid. The first few months after she and Charles stopped speaking to each other, Flávia had been fairly vocal about what she thought of the whole situation. She understood the hurt that they were both feeling, but as far as she was concerned, they still needed each other. Her greatest fear was that they would both continue to grow into the cut-throat world of racing without the person they trusted most at their side. As someone who experienced how difficult life could be at the pinnacle of motorsports, even as only a family member of one of the racers, Flávia worries for them. She had Gabriel to lean on after Ayrton’s death – her best friend and the love of her life. Noa and Charles, as long as they’re apart, don’t have that.

Speaking of her father, he seems to understand her reasoning a little more. Gabriel Borges is ambitious if nothing else. He fought tooth and nail to win his championships and solidify his place in the Formula 1 hall of fame. It’s a trait he’s passed on to his daughter. Sponsorships like this are important now, with racing becoming more and more lucrative with each passing season. In order to succeed, a driver needs the backing of some of the most influential brands in the world. For a rookie, it simply doesn’t get bigger than Chanel. Both Noa and Gabriel know that this is an opportunity she can’t pass up, no matter how difficult it may be for her with Charles there. They need to make it work.

He may not necessarily agree with her ‘keep him at arm’s length’ approach, but if that’s what she thinks is going to work for her, then Gabriel will support her through it.

With Luiz and Eloísa settling into their apartment in Italy, it’s only her parents who wave her goodbye at the airport. Noa has never been a fan of flying. The seats are too cramped and the people too noisy – she can never find a position comfortable enough to fall asleep. Sometimes it can be peaceful simply watching the world pass by beneath her from the window, but eventually, miles upon miles of ocean gets a little boring. So Noa spends the first thirteen hours of her flight wide awake, silently begging the couple in front of her to do something about their screaming baby. Stopping off at Heathrow for the change over feels like a slice of heaven. Just to be able to get up and stretch her legs for a little while is pure bliss. But within an hour she’s back on a different plane, looking down over the English Channel, over Normandy and eventually, the south of France. The nerves begin to set in then. There’s no going back once this plane lands – she’ll be stuck in Monaco with the person she most wants to avoid in the world for the next three weeks. Granted, she’ll have her second family there with her too, but Noa doubts she’ll be able to shake the awkward feeling even when they’re around.

Jetlag’s a bitch, is all she can think when she steps off the plane and into the harsh winter sunlight. It makes her skull ache, beating down on her, yet offering little to no warmth – typical Europe. If only it was summer here like back home. She’s grown accustomed to heat in the high twenties and sleeping with all the windows open. Checking the weather app on her phone, she sees that right now the temperature is barely breaking ten degrees. Lovely. On top of that, Noa hasn’t slept for practically an entire day. She can already imagine the headlines if she gets photographed – Gabriel Borges’ daughter spotted wandering airport sleep-deprived and wearing no makeup! The press would have a field day with that one.

She just about manages to haul her suitcase through security before collapsing on one of the lobby benches. It’s her own fault for overpacking, really. She’s never been one to prioritise well when it comes to clothes. Noa pulls her phone out of her pocket, quickly refreshing it to see if Charles has messaged her yet – sure enough, sent seven minutes ago: I’m outside. Do you want me to come in and help with your bags? Despite the contempt she still feels towards him, Noa could have cried with pure joy. She sends back a brief yes before struggling up off the bench, all but dragging her luggage through the lobby now. She can only hope he gets here quickly, because her arms are surely about to come out of their sockets if she has to carry these any further.

When his figure appears in the distance, the nerves return. He’s dressed like he doesn’t want to be spotted, in a grey hoodie and shorts, large enough that he can practically hide the entirety of his face in the collar. No one seems to notice him. For the moment anyway. When Charles eventually spots her, he seems to hesitate for a moment – like she’d seen him do at the café, arms hanging uselessly by his side as if he wants to outstretch them towards her, but remembers at the last minute that he can’t do that anymore. Noa’s eyes are glued to the ground as she walks towards him. They meet in the middle. He murmurs a brief hello, and when she doesn’t reply, takes her bags without another word.

They walk out to his car in silence. It’s a black Mercedes G63 – inconspicuous by his standards, and perhaps those of the travellers milling around them (many of them are en route to Monaco, after all). It has black tinted windows, she notices. Charles tells her to climb into the passenger seat while he loads her bags into the back. She hasn’t the energy left to complain. It takes everything in her not to fall asleep as soon as she’s sat down, eyes drooping in the dimmed light, a hazy warmth taking over her body. She jumps slightly as Charles opens the door and slides into the driver’s seat. He starts the engine. Before Noa can really process what’s going on around her, they’ve already left the airport.

"How was your flight?" Charles asks after a few minutes, soft spoken and hesitant. An absentminded hum is what greets him.

"It was alright." she murmurs back, fighting off the sudden urge to yawn. There's an edge of discontentedness in her voice, an air of frustration and annoyance about her. Noa has always hated flying, he thinks. Even as children all those years ago, she'd kick up the biggest fuss possible before so much as stepping foot on a plane. His mother always joked about it being because she can't sit still for more than a few hours, which, he supposes, had a fair amount of truth. Charles knows it's because the whole thing made her anxious. He's held her hand at takeoff enough times to have realised it, even if she never spoke the words to him out loud. The memory almost makes him smile. Then he remembers where he is, and his jaw clenches shut.

“Just to let you know, Maman, Arthur and Lorenzo will all be home when we arrive.” Charles is, once again, the one to speak up when they lapse into silence, “They’ve planned a, uh, sort of welcome home – welcome back meal.” He relays, glancing at Noa anxiously out of the corner of his eye. She’s slumped in her seat. The only sign she’s even listening to him is the tiny hum she lets out. “I can tell them you’re too tired to do it today, though, if you’d like. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind pushing it back to tomorrow –“

“No, it’s fine.” Noa cuts across him quickly. “That’s really sweet of them.”

Charles nods. He thinks back to that morning; helping Lorenzo pin up the ‘welcome home’ banner above the archway leading from the kitchen to the living room; watching with a wistful smile as his mother set out a tray of paçoca, the little cylinders of peanut butter Noa used to love when they were younger, on the kitchen table. Where she managed to get hold of them Charles doesn’t know, considering they’re a sweet pretty much exclusive to Brazil. He tries not to think about how Noa will react to it all. The thought digs up old memories he'd rather stayed buried, for the sake of his heart.

“If you want you can get some sleep now. I know you’re probably jetlagged.” He speaks up again after a beat of silence, quieter this time, “I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

Noa doesn’t reply for a moment. She’s still turned away from him ever so slightly, but as he glances to the side, he can see her expression reflected in the window. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth, biting down hard from the looks of it. He doesn’t know if it’s his imagination, but her eyes appear glossy, brimming with unshed tears. There’s an ache in his heart that he’s not sure how to properly describe. Cathartic might be the only word close enough. It hurts, but at the same time, it’s almost freeing.

“If that’s ok with you.” She finally speaks, after what feels like an age. Her head turns to the side until she’s looking at him. Charles keeps his gaze on the road, but he can see her in his periphery.

“Of course.” He mumbles, a little hoarse. His heart is screaming at his head to turn, to smile at her, to show a little of the warmth they used to share for each other, in the wildest, most fanciful hope she may be reminded of it and find it in herself to forgive him there and then. In the end, he doesn’t turn. Instead, he hears the faint rustling of fabric on skin as Noa curls up a little to the side, leaning her head against the window. It falls silent again. Now Charles is the one with glossed over eyes, battling himself.

“Thank you.” Her voice, melodic as ever, cuts through the quiet. This time he does turn – but she’s not looking at him, already half asleep, eyes closed and fluttering ever so slightly underneath their lids. He watches her until he runs the risk of coming off the road. Charles knows she’s already asleep before he has the chance to say anything in reply.

Noa tends to have very vivid dreams. She remembers many a time closing her eyes and being greeted with an explosion of colour, scarlet race cars screaming down asphalt tracks, her flag: emerald, gold, deep blue, waving her across the finish line. A glinting trophy is thrust into her hands, and she lifts it high into the air, watching the crowd raise up their arms with her – a sea of red and yellow. But today, Noa closes her eyes and sees nothing but darkness. Charles is nudging her gently awake, it seems, less than a split second after falling into her slumber. Bleary-eyed, she sits up. The Leclerc house, her second home, sits gleaming in the frosty winter sunlight like a beacon. A thrill of excitement grips her heart. It’s been so long since she’s seen Pascale and Lorenzo – far, far too long. Her head turns, a half-smile on her face, to find Charles watching her. It falls. The sky seems to darken.

“You ready to go?” he asks. Noa nods solemnly, waiting for him to open the car door and climb out before sucking in a deep, shuddering breath. When she too steps out onto the pavement, her expression is steeled.

Charles is holding her bags in either of his hands. He gives her a look that, after years of knowing each other, she can interpret in an instant – Don’t even try it, I’m taking them in for you. She feels a small surge of gratefulness, but every positive emotion seems to be drowned out by her crushing nerves right now. Noa’s not exactly sure why she feels so nervous. These people are her second family, after all. Maybe it’s the nagging fear in the back of her mind that too much has changed; that things will never go back to the happy, perfect way they used to be.

The doorbell ringing brings her back the present. They’re stood on the front porch now, shoulder to shoulder, tense and stiff. Noa pulls at a loose thread on her joggers, focussing with absolute resolve on the door in front of her – paint peeling away ever so slightly at the edge. She knows if she brushed her fingers over it, they would come away dusted with white paint flakes. A second, maybe two passes. The door swings open.

All her nerves simply melt away as soon as she sees Pascale; arms already held out wide and motherly, eyes glistening with soon-to-be-shed tears, and the most genuine smile Noa has ever seen anyone wear. She looks only slightly older than she remembers. A few more wrinkles perhaps, a couple more grey hairs, but in essence, exactly the same. Constant. At least this much hasn’t changed.

“Ma fille!” My girl. Pascale gasps loudly. She’s rushing forwards, pulling Noa inside and engulfing her in a hug before she even knows what is happening – but the familiarity of it is so easy to melt into. The young woman rests her forehead briefly against her shoulder, suddenly unable to stop smiling, when before she’d been wondering how she would manage to fake one. Of course, she’s known all along how much she’s missed Pascale. The woman has been like a second mother to her for practically a decade. But being here now makes her realise the full force of the emotion. It feels like returning home after a long vacation, when all you want to do is sleep in the comfort of your own bed and relish in the sensation of being utterly safe. That’s how Pascale feels to Noa. Safe.

“Oh, look at you!” she gasps again, pulling away to place her hands on either of Noa’s cheeks. “You’ve grown so beautiful!”

In the two years it’s been since she last saw the Leclercs, Noa has blossomed. From a scrawny eighteen-year-old with skinny elbows and seemingly untameable curls, she’s truly grown into herself. Thanks to training, she’s attained the ‘athlete’s build’ she always craved as a teenager. Days spent soaking up the Brazilian sun on Ipanema beach have bronzed her skin, giving it an almost golden hue. Perhaps it’s the salt air, but even Noa’s unruly curls seem to have matured – instead of going frizzy in the heat and falling messily over her eyes, they now frame her tanned face perfectly. Honeyed streaks of blonde run all the way through to the ends. She looks different, she knows that. But it never hits her until she meets people again who have been absent from her life for years.

“Thank you.” Noa can’t help but giggle. Pascale merely holds her tighter, seemingly inspecting every inch of her face for anything else that may have changed. She can see the surprise and the elation in her eyes – but there’s sadness too, an odd mixture, as if she’s battling with regret. Noa supposes it’s to be expected. They went from seeing each other at least every month to all but no contact for two years. Pascale is as affected by it as she is.

As soon as Noa is released from her grip, she turns to face the other Leclerc brothers, who have been watching the whole time with fond smiles and wide eyes. She goes to Lorenzo first, since Arthur has already seen her fairly recently. The eldest of the brothers opens him arms to her gladly, and she steps straight into them. Lorenzo has always been like her protector. As the boys got older and, as boys tended to do, teased her or played too rough (case in point Arthur almost drowning her at the beach one time), he was always the one to give her a hug and scold them afterwards. With only little brothers (Charles didn’t count, as her best friend), Lorenzo was to her the older brother she never had but always found herself wishing for.

“Woah, how much have you grown? A foot?” he says, pulling away only slightly so her arms are still clasped around his back, and his come to rest on her shoulders. Noa giggles softly. It was a long standing joke that, even at eighteen, she barely rose to the height of Charles or Lorenzo’s shoulder. Miraculously, her long-awaited growth spurt arrived once most girls her age stopped growing entirely. Now she stands at a fairly respectable five foot six – though still short enough for Lorenzo to use her head as an arm rest, he quickly realises. Noa waves him away with a playful glare.

“Did he talk to you in the car? Or was it deathly silent?” he asks, not even needed to use Charles’ name for her to know exactly who he is talking about. His eyebrows raise as if he’s joking, but Noa can sense the hard edge of frustration in his voice. She smiles at him sheepishly.

“I wouldn’t know. I fell asleep.”

Lorenzo snorts. That’s all they say on the matter, because Arthur is soon weaselling his way in between them to give her a welcome hug. Apparently, a minute is far too long for his brother to spend with her whilst he’s stuck waiting on the sidelines.

Charles’ feet padding on the carpeted staircase draw Noa’s eyes unwillingly to him. She hadn’t even noticed him exit the room, too caught up in reunions and holding back tears to pay much attention to her surroundings. He’s taken her bags up to her room, he tells her. She merely nods in reply. The tension doesn’t remain for long – Pascale doesn’t let it. Soon enough, everyone is gathering in the kitchen, all proud, knowing smiles from the Leclercs and gasps from Noa as she catches sight of the ‘welcome home’ banner strung up across the archway. She’d known, of course, that they were planning something, thanks to Charles’ warning, but she didn’t expect something like this. They’ve brought another long, wooden table from God knows where into the room, placing it end to end with the main kitchen table to make more room for the spread set out across it. A white floral tablecloth covers the wood, and on top of it, tiered stands of seemingly all the food she could ever eat – fresh strawberries, watermelon, French cheese (which Noa had been introduced to by the Leclercs, and was shocked to find she actually loved), pineapple, even some chocolate and cupcakes (something she’ll later say is just a one off to her nutritionist), and finally, in the very centre, a bowl full of paçoca, her favourite childhood sweet. She remembers Charles calling her strange for essentially eating peanut butter on its own – but even today, it really is her one weakness.

“Oh, meu Deus.” Oh my God. She whispers. Her hand flies up to cover her mouth, holding back the half-sob she can feel bubbling up in her throat. “This – this is too much. You really didn’t have to –“

“Noa.” It’s Arthur that cuts her off, rolling his eyes fondly, “Just let us do something nice for you. Call it a late birthday gift.” He adds with a smirk. Noa scoffs. A part of her had thought maybe they wouldn’t remember her birthday – of course, she was wrong about that.

“This is amazing.” She speaks up softly after a moment, “Thank you so much.” Her throat closes around the words ever-so-slightly, vision blurring, heart aching in the best way possible. Pascale moves forward to pull her body into hers, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

“We missed you so much, petit ange.” She murmurs, “We’re just glad to have you back with us.”

I’m glad too, Noa thinks. She’s not naïve enough to believe it will all be smooth sailing from here; not as long as the pair of sad green eyes burning into her back remain. But this, she believes fully, this she can deal with. Reuniting with her second family has been a long time coming.

They eat like it’s the old times, bar Noa and Charles’ playful bickering (fallen flat, almost dead now). Pascale insists on piling her plate as high as possible, mumbling something about athlete’s diets being too sparse (or at least, that’s what she could make out with her questionable French vocabulary). Arthur doesn’t spare a thought before diving straight into the cupcake and chocolate stand, ignoring his mother’s protests about him letting their ‘guest’ choose first. Lorenzo opts for the fresh fruit more than the confectionary. Charles tries to resist the pull of sugar, better than Arthur admittedly, but his attempts are short lived. By any right, that amount of food should never disappear as quickly as it does – but before they know it, every last morsel is gone. Noa sits back in her seat, deep in conversation with Pascale about latest goings on in her family life, finding her eyes growing heavier with each passing second. Everything around her feels pleasantly hazy; comfortable. It’s the same way she feels sat at home with her parents and her brother after a good meal, lounged on the living room sofas watching cheesy Brazilian telenovelas. Like she’s safe to just be herself.

Pascale tells Lorenzo, Charles and Arthur to collect all the dirty plates and begin the washing up. They know that refusing isn’t an option, so it isn’t long before she and Noa are alone. It must be mid-afternoon by now, the Brazilian woman thinks, but her limbs are as heavy as if she’s stayed up all night and well into the morning – which, she supposes, technically she has. Pascale is observant enough to have already noticed, luckily for her. They’ve spent all of five minutes talking in the living room when she tells her to go up to her room and sleep off the jet lag.

“Oh, but –“ Noa is quick to interject, “I haven’t even asked how things are going for you yet.” She says guiltily. Pascale has been so fixated on catching up with every single moment of the last two years she has missed, that there hasn’t even been time to cover anything else. Noa is acutely aware that the last time they saw each other, it had only been a year since Hervé passed away. She knows as well as anybody that sometimes the people that look the most put-together are the ones who are struggling the most. She just wants to make certain that Pascale is doing ok – truly ok.

“I’ll still be here tomorrow.” The woman reassures her with a gentle chuckle. Noa’s concerned expression falls into a tired, but content smile. That’s the beauty of it – right now, they really do have all the time in the world to catch up. Until of course the new season begins. But three weeks before her soon-to-be packed schedule feels like a lifetime.

Noa retreats slowly upstairs, not so much as sparing a glance towards her unpacked bags, or even attempting to change out of her airport clothes before she collapses onto the bed, and almost immediately falls straight to sleep. The ease with which she already seems to have slipped back into life in the Leclerc house (which almost feels like home) is unexpected, but by no means unwelcome. She just hopes she’ll be able to carry that feeling of safety with her into the coming weeks, when undoubtedly, some difficult conversations will need to be had.

By the time the Leclerc brothers have finished the washing up – a difficult task, what with Charles and Arthur squabbling over who gets to dry the plates and who has to do the unpleasant job of actually washing them, whilst Lorenzo, serene as ever, allocates himself the task of sorting the various items of crockery away – Pascale is sat alone in the living room. She looks calm, quietly assured, but at the same time, they can sense a level of disappointment that wasn’t there before. Charles fears, before his mother’s gaze even turns in his direction, that that disappointment is meant for him.

“Où est allée Noa?” Where did Noa go? Lorenzo asks, taking the seat next to Pascale and looping his arm fondly around her shoulders. Arthur, not so delicately, throws himself face down on the long sofa facing the television, leaving Charles to occupy the lone arm chair on the other side of the room. It’s ironic, that he’s separated from his family that way, when he’s been feeling separated emotionally for far longer.

“A l'étage. Pour dormir.” Upstairs. To sleep. Pascale answers, soft-spoken as ever. Lorenzo nods, as Arthur flips his body around on the sofa so he’s no longer lying face down, but rather looking up towards the ceiling.

“Ah. Le décalage horaire?” Ah. Jet lag?

“Oui.”

Charles stays quiet. He knows full well his family are waiting for him to say something – maybe they’re not sure what, but then again, he isn’t either. Noa hasn’t spoken a single word to him. All of her attention has been directed towards his mum and her questions, or to his brothers and their playful teasing about how much she’s grown. That still doesn’t take away from the fact that he knows she’s doing it on purpose. Most of him doesn’t blame her, but there’s a small part in the back of his mind that feels almost…betrayed. It takes two to end a friendship, after all. Noa didn’t exactly attempt to salvage the wreck they’d made.

“Well I think that went pretty well.” Arthur speaks up first in French, staring up at the ceiling with his arms crossed over his stomach. Charles looks over, trying to catch his eye. He must sense it, but his gaze remains turned away. Another beat of silence passes.

“She’s quieter.” Lorenzo says thoughtfully. He’s right too. It’s not just in the way that she doesn’t talk half as much as she used to, it’s something in her demeanour as well. There used to be a spark in Noa’s eye that Charles would look towards whenever he needed cheering up. Now when he searches for it, there’s layers upon layers shrouding the once happy memory. Like he’s peering through thick fog, trying to make out a landscape he’s long since forgotten.

“Je ne suis pas surpris.” I’m not surprised. Arthur muses. All eyes turn to him, Lorenzo frowning, Pascale already prepared to question what exactly he means by that. Charles thinks he knows. “Oh, come on. It’s obvious isn’t it?” the youngest of the Leclercs scoffs, sitting up from his relaxed position on the sofa. His eyes are dark, frustrated, perhaps even angry. “First he takes her chance at being offered a Formula 1 seat – with Ferrari, her dream team.” Arthur begins, jabbing a harsh finger in Charles’ direction. He winces, “Then her mother almost dies, and she has to give up her career just to be with her. She’s a Senna Borges. Racing is in her blood. And we all know how hard she worked, just to fall short at the final hurdle – not even through her own fault.” He takes a pause to breathe, eyes now blazing. Charles, Lorenzo and Pascale sit watching in some kind of fascinated horror. It’s rare to see Arthur so worked up. He’s always been the kind of person that can make light of any situation, no matter how grim. But there’s something about Noa and the cruel hand she’s been dealt in life lately that makes his blood boil.

“Now she’s finally made it to Formula 1, where she deserves to be, but she’s also stuck with the person who ruined that dream for her the first time around.” He goes on, turning now to Charles, “Look, I don’t care about what happened between you two. There’s nothing you can do to change it now. But Noa is like a sister to me, and as long as you both refuse to talk to each other, we’re never going to feel like a family to her again. Like we used to.” Arthur speaks, almost alarmingly softly, his jaw clenched hard, “For once just stop being so selfish and look at this from someone else’s perspective. Preferably hers. You know you owe it to her after –“

“Arthur!” Pascale’s voice cuts through the tense atmosphere like a knife, silencing her youngest son immediately, “Do not call your brother selfish. You don’t understand the full story – none of us do.”

That seems to bring him back to his senses. Everything falls silent, but also on the brink of chaos, teetering on a knife edge. Nobody except Lorenzo notices the faint tremor in Pascale’s hand, which he tries to quell by rubbing her shoulder comfortingly. Charles is sat, rigid back, white knuckles, in the arm chair, glaring at Arthur from across the room. Meanwhile the aforementioned blinks as if he’s just awakened from a trance.

"Je suis désolé." I’m sorry. He murmurs, “I don’t know what –“

“Maman’s right.” Charles cuts him off tersely, “You don’t know the full story. You don’t know the things I said to her that night, or the things she said to me…” he trails off, breathing shakily even at the memory of it, “But you’re also right. I took the opportunity of a lifetime from her. She has every right to be angry at me, every right to hate me. That’s why I’m trying to make this right – and believe me, Arthur, I am trying. It’s just…it’s hard.” Charles’ gaze drops to the ground, almost shamefully, “So much has changed.”

Guilt is the most overwhelming part of this whole mess. Even though much of the misfortune that Noa has endured in the past two years has been entirely unrelated to him, he still can’t help but feel partly responsible. Perhaps it was his actions, something at the time he considered to be a mercy, that began the snowball effect. Perhaps if he’d never accepted Ferrari’s call, even though he so desperately wanted it, everything would be as perfect as he remembers. There’s so much uncertainty it’s impossible to predict. But Charles knows, at least from his side of the story, ever since the moment Noa walked out of his life, it’s gradually been growing duller and duller and duller. In a sick sort of way, he half hopes it has been the same for her.

“You do know she could never hate you, right?” Arthur speaks up softly. Charles’ gaze lifts from the ground, eyebrows furrowing inquisitively, “Mon dieu you’re both so stubborn.” He laughs humourlessly, shaking his head, “Noa may act like she can’t even look at you right now, but I know her just as well as you do. Maybe even better now, if you can’t see it.” He arches an eyebrow, “She’s hurting, Charles. You know what she does when she’s hurting? She pushes the people she cares about the most away.”

Winter break, 2014, Charles thinks. Of course. How could he forget?

“I’m just saying,” Arthur goes on, “If you mess this up any more than you already have, then she will end up hating you. But I can see it. Right now, she doesn’t. Not even close.”

Later, Pascale says something to him of the same effect. Hurt can fester. There are only two ways that things can go from here, with them both being kept so close to each other for the first time in so long. Either it brings them closer together – they work through their differences, overcome the mountains that stand in their way, and emerge on the other side even stronger because of it. Or, they’ll push each other away.

“I know what I would do if I were you.” Pascale tells him solemnly, “But you two need to figure this out on your own.”

It’s easy to say that, Charles thinks, when you haven’t made the mistakes they’ve both made. It’s so easy to imagine himself explaining how he thought he’d be protecting her by not telling her Ferrari had approached him. In his mind, she’ll listen and understand, and everything will go back to the way it used to be. But every time he runs the words he might say to her through his mind, he draws a blank. What mere words can salvage the ruins of a near decade-long friendship? What words can do justice the longing he feels to have her back in his life, not just as a distant memory, a relative stranger, but as his best friend. And even if he could find the words, there’s no guarantee Noa will even listen to them. Despite everything, she seems set on keeping her distance. Maybe Charles doesn’t blame her. Or maybe he wishes she’d fight a little harder.

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