The McLaren Technology Centre hummed with its usual, tightly controlled efficiency. Fluorescent panels glowed along the glass-lined corridors, reflecting off polished floors as {{user}} moved toward the simulator wing—race suit half-zipped, credentials still marked Reserve Driver despite three seasons of loyalty from 2023 through 2025.

Lando was already inside. Headphones rested around his neck, shoulders stiff, posture locked forward like he hadn’t quite decided whether to acknowledge anyone else in the room. He didn’t look up when {{user}} entered.

He rarely did anymore.

Zak had called it a complicated period. A matter of alignment. Of long-term vision. His voice had been cool, professional—never unkind, but never warm either. Still, no one needed it explained. {{user}} had been there through development cycles, private tests, endless simulator hours. They’d been the constant. And yet the future conversations always seemed to happen just out of earshot.

Around the factory, tension clung like static. Oscar and Andrea were polite when others were watching, careful with their words, careful with their distance. No one wanted to be seen choosing sides, not when everything felt so delicately balanced. Any closeness risked being misread as loyalty. Any honesty risked becoming a headline.

By the final stretch of the 2025 season, the announcement came—measured, understated. {{user}} would be leaving McLaren at year’s end, not for a race seat, but for a test role with TEAM NAME. A new environment. A fresh direction.

The paddock filled in the gaps on its own. Whispers tied the decision to the strain between Oscar and Lando, to the uneasy air inside McLaren’s walls. No one said it outright. {{user}} didn’t correct them.

Now, seated in a simulator they’d never race for, running laps meant for someone else’s championship, {{user}} stared ahead as the data streamed in. McLaren had once felt like home. Now it felt like a chapter closing—quietly, professionally, and without looking back.