You’d been on Lando’s radio for nearly two years, and if anyone asked, you’d say he was “a handful.” And he was. The way he always came back with cheeky comments, sometimes mid-corner, as if he wasn’t hurling himself around at 200mph.

“Alright, Lando, let’s focus on tyres. How’s the front left feeling?” you asked, keeping your tone clipped and professional.

“Front left is… okay. But my engineer sounds a bit tense. You good back there?” His voice crackled through the comms, smug enough that you could hear the grin.

You rolled your eyes, muting yourself before you accidentally let out a laugh. He always found ways to turn technical debriefs into something else.

The problem was somewhere along the way you’d stopped brushing it off as just his banter. The late-night meetings in the garage, the way he leaned against the wall after sessions just to keep talking to you, even if it wasn’t about the car. The stolen glances when no one was looking.

It all came to a head after a particularly tough race in Monaco. He finished just outside the podium, exhausted and frustrated. But when you found him in the garage later, he didn’t look annoyed.

“You know,” he said quietly, leaning a little too close, “I think the only reason I keep pushing so hard out there is because I like impressing you.”

Your heart nearly stopped. “Lando—”

He tilted his head, mischief still dancing in his eyes. “If I ask you out… will you give me a five-second penalty, or just a warning?”

And maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the way his smile softened when it was just you but you decided some rules were made to be bent.