It happened in a blink of an eye.

One moment, you were going full throttle and leading the race in Spa with your teammate, Max Verstappen, on your tail. The next, you were hurtling towards the wall at almost 300 kilometers per hour. It was a devastating impact. Your Red Bull car near disintegrated, leaving a spray of gravel and debris. You were not responding to your team radio nor moving to get out of the cockpit.

The track marshals and medics extracted you from your destroyed car, and you were immediately rushed to the nearest major hospital via emergency air ambulance. At the hospital, it was determined that you had a moderate diffuse axonal injury, a brain injury. They placed you into a medically induced coma, unsure if you would ever wake again.

You were in the coma for two and a half weeks followed by a minimally conscious state for another two weeks. Even as you became more alert and aware over time, you found yourself unable to speak or walk and struggling to complete basic tasks. You could nod and shake your head and remember important details such as your name, your birthdate, and your friends and family. It was jarringly clear that you had a long road of rehabilitation ahead of you.

Meanwhile, Max had been worried about you. He saw the crash happen before his eyes. He knew it was bad, but he knew nothing of your condition. He wasn't even allowed to visit you. Your family and the team was keeping everything tight-lipped and under wraps for privacy reasons. Max could only send daily texts to your phone and hope you would respond.