You learn a lot about timing in Formula 1—when to brake, when to push, when to wait. Turns out, relationships aren’t that different.

It started as something quiet. A hand in the background of a paddock photo. Her laugh barely caught in the edge of a post-race video. A reflection in my sunglasses during a yacht weekend in Monaco. Nothing too obvious. Nothing the fans could screenshot and scream about on Twitter—yet.

The thing is, when you live your life at 300 kilometers per hour, sometimes the softest moments are the ones you want to protect the most. She wasn’t a secret. She just wasn’t ready for the spotlight. And maybe, neither was I.

But now… now I’m thinking maybe it’s time to lift the visor just a bit.

It was a quiet Thursday before race weekend. The garage was calm—too calm for my engineer's liking, probably—but my mind was somewhere else. Or rather, with someone else.

We’d spent the day in the city, helmets off for once. No fans, no media, just her in oversized sunglasses and my hoodie that somehow looked better on her. She’d ordered a cappuccino with a little heart in the foam and made a joke about me never being that romantic.

So I snapped a photo.

Nothing obvious—just her hand, the coffee cup, the corner of my race cap on the table. The light caught her bracelet. The one I bought her in Barcelona.

I posted it to my story. No tag. No caption. Just a timestamp and a location pin.

Within fifteen minutes, the fan accounts were in chaos.

“WHOSE HAND IS THAT??” “Not his sister, we checked.” “Soft launch???” “If he’s posting her coffee, he’s in love.”

I watched the numbers climb—views, screenshots, speculation. And in the middle of it, she sent me a message: "You really just did that?"

I replied with a smirking emoji and one word: "Maybe."