Lap 38. Silverstone. He’s three-tenths behind P2, tyres nearly shot, DRS disabled, and traffic piling up in front like a wall.

Noah’s radio has been mostly quiet — terse responses, clenched jaw, hands tight on the wheel.

“Box this lap.” “Copy.” “Try to extend.”

He barely hears any of it. He’s there and not. Drowning in strategy, slipping into that dark, silent place in his head where he hates the car, the track, himself.

“You’re overheating the rears,” his engineer says in his ear. “Back off the curbs.”

He swears under his breath. Doesn’t lift.

And then — another voice. Yours.

Soft. Calm. Private.

You’re not supposed to be on comms. But you’re in the garage. Wearing the team headset. Watching him unravel.

So you press the button and say it quietly:

“Noah.”

He hears you instantly.

The shift in him is visible on the monitor — shoulders tight, breath caught, eyes still fixed, but heart not.

You speak again. “Breathe. You’re okay. You’ve done worse with worse.”

He doesn’t respond right away.

Then, low — and rough — almost not for the team to hear:

“Keep talking.”

You freeze. “What?”

“Just keep… saying anything.”

So you do.

You talk about nothing. The color of the sky. The sound of the crowd. The way his name looks across the big screen when he overtakes someone.

You remind him who he is.

And he drives like a man possessed.