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They’re the only girls on the track. Racing in the Netherlands before, Max has hardly seen any other girls in the cars she races wheel-to-wheel, except her mum. Now there she is: another little girl with a boy’s name, standing by the karts with her helmet tucked under her arm. Max already knows who she is, her mum had mentioned on the drive over, the name of this girl. Charles. Max’s dad had said it was a strange name for a girl, derision curling his lip, like his daughter who he had named Max and not Maxine was not in the backseat.
Now this Charles looks up. She raises a hand, nodding. She would probably like to be friends, or the imitation of ‘friends’. There are no friends on a racetrack, her father has told her this. Max does not nod back. She knows she will win this race, anyway, she has to. Nobody wants to be friends with the winner.
*
They fight a lot. Max’s mum doesn’t let her read what they say about her, or about Charles, but her dad does. They use words that sting. Every spin off the track is because they’re girl drivers, every clash they have together because they’re fighting over a boy in the karts behind them. Max will always be the “girl driver”; every time she pushes too hard she’s hormonal, every time she misses the mark she’s too soft.
“This is the way in the world,” says her father. “You will have to be tougher.”
The boys think so too, on the track. They hate her for winning, they hate her for even driving. The ones that don’t hate her don’t want to be friends, because they find her dad scary or they’re jealous of her wins or they’re boys and she’s a girl. It’s lonely in a sharp way, a loneliness that reminds her of who she is and what she will be.
“You will be the first,” Victoria said once. She should have been driving too, could have been, but their mother had put her foot down. Max still doesn’t understand why, except maybe that she couldn’t bare to see Victoria’s name in print either, beside Mad Bitch and The Girl. “You will be the first in Formula 1.” Max has been believing it ever since, she has to for Victoria.
Charles stands beside her sometimes, when they’re both standing alone watching the others — the boys — talk and laugh and pack away their karts. “Why are not we friends?” she asks once, tripping over the English slowly. Max has seen them call her stupid, for this very thing.
Max had shrugged.
Charles said then, in a low voice, “Pierre was supposed to be my friend, you see? But he was a little boy and he — how do you say? To like more? — preferred my brothers.” She paused and Max had felt her eyes on her. “We are both filles , Max. Can we not be friends?”
“Maybe,” Max had said, “this Pierre is not your friend because you are better, no? I am not friends with my competition. You are my competition.” She’s pretty sure Charles was smiling as she walked away.
*
Victoria and their mum leave. Max sits with her dad and pretends people don’t stare.
*
She’s seventeen when they pull her into Torro Rosso. “I’m going to get shit for it,” Helmut Marko says, “you are too young and you are a girl. You’re a good driver, despite this. RedBull has always been a team that strives for firsts , Maxine. You will be the first.”
“It’s just Max,” she says. It feels all at once like finally and it’s not over. She is good despite. If she fails, they will remove her or they will never let another girl into the sport. This she knows, this she has always known.
Marko shrugs, like he doesn’t give a shit. “Welcome to Formula 1, you’ll be test driving next week.”
He dismisses her and she is just a trophy, in that moment. She is the youngest, she is the only woman, she’s two birds with one stone, as they say.
*
Before Charles arrives in Formula 1, Max almost ruins it all. There are moments, in those four years, where Max is the face of women at the pinnacle of motor sport, and she is a terrible face. The PR is bad, the racing is bad, the media is worse than bad.
Max does not think she has ever been called ugly this much in her life.
They ban anyone from joining the sport as young as she was a few months in, they try to ban more than that. “It’s a witch hunt,” says Horner, coming down from his high seat at RedBull to speak to her , “plain and simple. We always knew it would come to this. Perhaps you should be less aggressive.”
The PR people have been saying this for months. “I will not slow down,” says Max, same as she has been. “This is racing, if the boys cannot deal with it perhaps they should find another sport.”
Horner smiles slightly. “I thought you might say that.”
*
Carlos, her teammate, watches her across the briefing room table as everyone packs up and says, “If you act less…” He waves at all of her with one broad hand. “… then maybe they would like you.”
“Maybe,” says Max. “Or they’d just find something else to hate.”
*
Mercedes try and scoop her up at the end of 2015. Susie comes to see her personally, expression fiercely serious. Max almost takes it, she really almost does, until Horner speaks to her personally about a seat at RedBull soon , a car that might start winning races, and Max looks at a spot in the Mercedes team under the shadow of Lewis Hamilton, and she sticks with her RedBull guns.
She stays another year in the Torro Rossos, as it turns out. (In another life they’re brave enough to give her the RedBull seat a year earlier. This is not that life.)
*
The comments of her Instagram are always something that Max does not look at. They call her Maxine and ask her things about her body, about which drivers have seen those body parts, about what they’ll do to her next time she spins out. It’s like a constant race in the rain, keeping an eye out for the spots on the track where there might be grip, squinting through the rushing sheets of it that keep on coming, keep on, keep on.
*
“And how do you feel, about another woman joining the paddock?” asks the interviewer, pushing his dark glasses up his oily nose.
“We will not be braiding hair and painting nails, if that’s what you’re asking,” says Max.
“Are you relieved that Formula 1 is letting another woman in? After your debut?”
Max walks away from the interview then. They will call her a cold bitch who cannot take a joke, for that. She almost doesn’t care.
She watches interviews of Charles that night in her new Alfa Romeo polo, asking her the same stupid questions they’ve been asking Max. She replies with careful smiles and diplomatic responses and Max is about to switch off the interview and play FIFA until she can stop thinking about all this shit when they ask Charles, “Are you glad that the driving of your fellow female driver, Max Verstappen, has not banned women entirely from the sport?”
Charles pauses, blinking at the interviewer for a moment like she doesn’t know quite how to respond. Then she says, “Why would I not be glad that the misogyny in the sport has not ruined the chances for me and Verstappen? This seems like a very good thing, that we are both women at the pinnacle of motor sport. I am glad she managed to ‘get her foot in the door’ as you say and I hope we can both keep it open for the girls in our footsteps.”
They ask Charles next if she wouldn’t rather be racing in Force India’s pink car, Max turns off the interview.
She plays FIFA for a long time after that, unable to stop thinking about the look on Charles’ face when she was asked the question, unable to stop thinking of the girls in their footsteps. This seems like a very good thing .
After winning her final game she opens her phone without thinking and finds an old picture of a podium they’d had together that her mother had sent the week before when it was announced Charles would be joining her again on track. Never the best of friends, but girls on the stage together, her mum’s message had said, with laughing emojis and hearts after it. The words have been sticking in her head all week. She opens Instagram and posts the picture with the boy who never made it close to F3 cropped out, she captions it, Feet in the door. Congratulations, Charles.
It’s a congratulation a week late, Max feels a little silly after pressing post. She turns off her phone and goes to sleep, dreaming of shooting pixelated footballs at the greasy nose of the afternoon’s reporter.
(She wakes to a comment from Charles and a follow: At the pinnacle! When she follows Charles back she gets a DM: You had to post you winning and me in third? Max! It makes her laugh for the first time in a while.)
*
It’s easy racing Charles again, like slipping into something well-worn, but it is not easy being on the paddock with Charles. They call them ‘the WAGs’ and speculate about whose dicks they’re sucking, to get this far in the sport and to stay in it, and whose they’re sucking just for fun. At least the media find Charles beautiful, Max doesn’t know if she would be able to watch someone else get called ugly until they crack and go spinning into a wall.
“Good race,” says Charles, slapping her on the back as they watch the race winners climb up onto the podiums.
She can feel cameras on them, even though they’re hidden away in the pitlane away from the main event. “Thanks. You too.”
Charles smiles. “We will be up there one day soon. I know it.”
Max follows her gaze back up to the podiums. “Of course. If you keep up, Leclerc.”
“We are not yet friends?” Charles asks.
“You are still my competition. We will race properly.”
She smiles, shaking her head. “Ah, of course. I shall make you my friend, Max Verstappen.” She winks before she walks away, Max glares after her wondering what the hell she’s up to.
*
The middle season swap hits the paddock like a hurricane. Charles texts her congratulations alongside Victoria and their parents, a simple: Congratulations, you deserve it. The rest of the notifications are updates from her new RedBull PR person messaging her with every headline she can find, it seems.
REDBULL FURTHER IGNITES MOTOR SPORT GENDER WAR! and FEMALE DRIVER MAX VERSTAPPEN TO LEAVE JUNIOR TEAM and REDBULL PANDERS TO FEMINISTS, REMOVING DANIIL KVYAT FROM HIS SEAT and YOUNGEST FEMALE DRIVER TO REPLACE SEASONED DANIIL KVYAT . Max doesn’t read a single word of the articles.
“If you wanna make your driver’s room all girly, go all out for it,” says Daniel Ricciardo, dropping down in the seat beside Max in RedBull hospitality.
Max frowns at him. “What?”
“I was just kidding, sorry.” Daniel itches his eyebrow, grinning ruefully. “I’ve never had a lady teammate before, I’m probably going to say some stupid shit.”
“You already have,” says Max, drily.
He grins slightly brighter. “ Hey , you’re funny . I thought you were…” He pulls a serious, scowling expression. “You know?”
Max glares at him again. “Yes, Mad Bitch Max, I have seen the articles about my angry face, I do not need reminding.”
Daniel groans, sinking down into his seat like a moody teenager. “Listen, this is going like, possibly the worst it could have gone. Why don’t we start over and you pretend I never said anything stupid? Huh? I promise I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m usually a lot smoother than this.”
“Because you are trying to pick me up?” Max snaps, scandalised.
He makes a pained noise. “ No .”
“Because I’m ugly?”
“No!”
She narrows her eyes at him, he widens his innocently.
“Seriously, Max,” he says, “we’re going to be buddies as soon as you forgive me.” He smiles winningly. She starts to believe, then, that maybe he is telling the truth.
*
The taste of champagne on her lips, on the top step of a podium with fucking Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen on the steps below her, it feels worth it, everything. She knows she’s about to go back down to earth, in a moment, and have to answer stupid questions about pink RedBull liveries and whether she thinks another woman will ever do this. But here, right now, drivers of her childhood looking up at her , she is only thinking of what Charles said about the little girls who come next.
She feels dizzy with it, with all of it.
She can still feel the arms of the crew lifting her up as she bounded away from the car. Hands smacking her helmet and back, tears on her cheeks.
Daniel grabs her by the shoulders as she rejoins the rejoicing team, champagne soaked all the way through. “Holy shit , Max!”
“Holy shit,” she echoes and he laughs. “You are not too mad about having a ‘lady teammate’? Eh?”
He snorts, smacking her upper arm. “Never was. You’re coming out with everyone, right?”
The ‘everyone’ — the mechanics and engineers and a slightly weepy Horner — buffet around them like a raging sea of navy and bulls. She feels herself starting to smile. “Yes. To celebrate my win.”
“Your win,” he agrees, grinning.
It is later that Charles finds her, both drunk in the toilets of the club. “Max,” she says, dropping her purse beside the sinks. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Max blinks the dizziness away, pressing her hand against the cold wall to steady herself. “Now I will have to wait for you to catch up.”
Charles catches her eye in the mirror. “You will not have to wait long,” she promises, or threatens. Max still cannot make her out.
“I hope not,” says Max, before pushing back out into the heaving club.
*
She slams the newspaper onto the desk in Daniel’s driver room. VERSTAPPEN’S PUPPY LOVE FOR OLDER TEAMMATE. “This is not true,” she says fiercely. “I do not want to have sex with you.”
Daniel pulls a face. “Way to let a guy down gently, Maxy. Ow , don’t — I know it isn’t like that.” He pauses, contemplatively. “I know you’ve got the hots for someone else,” he hedges.
“What,” she snaps. “No I don’t.” There have been allegations about her fancying every driver, and of Charles they say every driver fancies her. “What gossip page are you reading, Daniel?”
He shrugs. “This one is just of my own observation.” He tilts back in his chair, grinning smugly. “A certain friend of yours…”
“I don’t have any friends,” says Max.
“We need to change that.” Daniel frowns. “Besides the point. It’s Charles.”
“What,” Max snaps again.
“You like Charles,” says Daniel with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Don’t you dare deny it. I’ve seen you two.”
“She is trying to be friends with me, just because we are both in possession of wombs. It is dumb and there’s nothing going on.”
“You’re blushing,” he says, sing-song.
“I blush at everything.”
“True,” he concedes, “but I just know I’m right about this.” He pulls the newspaper closer to him and starts to read, “‘Verstappen’s eyes are often found wandering after her older, more experienced teammate’ ooh, Max! The scandal! ‘After club celebrations the mature Daniel is often seen walking the young —’ Oi, why are they making me sound like such an absolute paedo in this?”
“They just know you are this much of a wanker,” says Max. “Also I have one of these articles with every driver, do not feel so special.”
Daniel frowns. “That’s pretty shit.”
She shrugs. “As my dad says, it is the way the world works.”
“Doesn’t mean it should.”
“Not much I can do to change it.”
He levels her with a rare serious look. “You’re doing a lot already, Max, just by being here.” He pushes the paper away. “And I know all this is bullshit, you don’t have to come and defend yourself every time.”
“Right.” She shifts from foot to foot, feeling uncomfortable under his gaze.
“I’m being serious.”
“I know. Thanks.”
*
Charles sits with her in the hotel lobby, Max didn’t even know they were in the same hotel. “It was a good race again,” says Charles.
“Didn’t see you much.”
Charles smiles. “You noticed? I was stuck behind a Haas.”
“I noticed,” says Max defensively, “because you are normally being so annoying.”
“I will catch you up,” she says, “soon.”
Max bites her lip, staring across the polished floor of the lobby towards the lifts. “You think Ferrari will take a female driver?”
She taps her knuckles on her knees, looking pensive.
“The most traditional team,” says Max, as gently as she can, “with the Tifosi?”
“It has been my dream,” says Charles, tipping back her head. “It will always be my dream.”
“Dreams don’t always —”
“Look where we are,” Charles cuts her off. “I mean, did you really think when we were children that we would get to properly race? When we were girls? When you were seventeen and they let you in just to try and kick you back out? It is a time of change, Max.”
“Traditionalists don’t like change, Charles. They’ll be the one constant.”
Charles frowns at her and stands up to walk away.
“Mercedes might want you, they wanted me,” says Max to her retreating back. Charles doesn’t turn around.
*
“You’re… leaving?” Max stands awkwardly in the door of Daniel’s driver room.
He winces. “… Yeah. That’s about the measure of it.”
“Why? What did I do? I apologised. I can apologise again?”
“This isn’t…” His expression gentles. “This isn’t about Baku, Max. This is about… What have you said before, about what your dad says about being friends with competition? This is basically that, except I’m friends with my competition, I’m just not teammates with them. I can’t be playing second fiddle to you, the younger, better driver. I just can’t, Max.”
“You don’t play —”
“I do,” says Daniel. “It’s not your fault and you can’t do anything to change my mind. I’ve signed with Renault.”
“Right.”
“Max…”
“I like being your teammate.”
He sighs. “I like being yours, most of the time. We’ll still be friends, I promise.”
Max stares at him and tries not to be dramatic and girly and think that the world is ending.
*
A whirlwind of teammates later and nothing quite clicking, Max thinks maybe she was justified in never wanting Daniel to leave.
Charles sighs, rolling her eyes. Max doesn’t quite know when she made good on her promise/threat of making Max her friend, but she finds herself more often than not coming to seek the Alfa Romeo driver out. Perhaps it is that there’s no one else on the grid who knows how it feels to be quite this lonely. “Horner will find you a teammate that works,” she says, tapping her badge on the gates to the paddock. “It’s almost the end of the season, if you really hate working with Checo so much.”
“He is worse than Daniel for the jokes,” says Max, “and I can never tell if he is being serious or not. He doesn’t drive the car as he should.”
She shrugs. “There will be someone new next season, then.”
Max glares at the back of Charles’s head and wishes it could be her , at least then Max would have someone she liked — That is, of course, when about three ideas hit her at once. One: that it would be a good idea to have Charles at RedBull, whatever Daniel and her father say about being friends or teammates with the opposition. Two: she likes Charles in a way she’s not actually certain she can define. And three: PR will almost definitely try and make them wear pink racing suits during women’s history month. “I’m going to get you a spot at a top team,” she says, stopping in the middle of the mostly empty thoroughfare, it’s early on a Wednesday morning.
“What?” says Charles, spinning round to face her.
“Ferrari haven’t asked you, have they?”
Her face twists. “And?”
“If Mercedes have, tell them no.”
“… Max, what?”
“I want you racing at RedBull with me.”
“That’s a stupid idea,” says Charles. “We can’t both win a championship with the same team.”
“We can’t both win it for different teams, either.” She looks around furtively. “At least let me get you an offer on the table, so you can consider it? We have… we have been lonely in the sport a long time, Charles. Can we not suffer through designs for pink and purple cars together?”
Charles snorts, then swallows, expression tight. “You think Ferrari will never have me?”
“If they make you an offer you can always take it, instead.”
She stares at Max in the early morning light of the paddock, gnawing on her lip. “This is a terrible idea,” she says.
*
“Are you excited to have Charles on your team?”
“I am of course excited to start decorating the garage with flowers and drive our pink, tampon sponsored cars to the finish line. Are we done with the bullshit questions, now? I’d like to get back to racing.”
*
Max watches the video of a harried Charles while she’s curled up in bed on her phone.
“Excited to be joining RedBull? Think you can beat Max?”
“It is the time to find out,” says Charles, smiling. “We have been racing for a long time against each other, I’m ready to keep on doing that.”
“Have you and Max talked about you joining the team?”
“She told me congratulations.”
“How do you think a team with two female drivers is going to work?”
Charles frowns. “Do you ask this when two male drivers get put on the same team? I would think with all the testosterone, this is a bigger concern. With me and Max, it is more a question of us both being top drivers. We have always been in competition with each other, in karting. This will be the big question: which one of us is faster. I am looking forward to finding out.”
Max drops her phone on her bedside table and smiles. She’s ready too. She thinks of Daniel’s text message: Try not to kiss your teammate, never ends well, Maxy. She doesn’t think she and Charles have to worry, they have of course been pushing the boundaries since they were old enough to sit in a kart. They’ve got one foot in the door, what’s another couple of limbs?
Only a few more races until the summer and after that, Max thinks, she’d rather like to win a championship with Charles scratching for every win beside her.
Good luck next year, she texts Charles, I hear your teammate is a mad bitch.
And yours the wag of half the grid! Charles texts back. Une fille!
Max snorts. They’ll be alright, she thinks. They really will. They’ve been racing together (and girls together) since they were old enough to know the world wasn’t going to love them, they’ve burst out into it all the same. She sounds alright, she texts.
Deux filles. Together?
Together.