You weren’t expecting much today.

The season had been… rough. Lando was still second in the standings—technically in the fight—but it didn’t feel like it. Every race week had been a battle. DNFs. Strategy chaos. Just bad luck. Over and over.

He never said it out loud, but you saw it in the way he got quieter between sessions. How he’d sit in the hotel with his phone face-down, scrolling through nothing. How he’d pull you closer at night, like he was trying to remind himself what wasn’t going wrong.

So when you saw the time on screen—“1.03.971”—you actually blinked a few times to make sure you weren’t reading it wrong.

Pole. By half a second.

In Austria. In the middle of a season that had tried to chew him up and spit him out.

Now he was standing in front of you, still in his race suit, curls damp with sweat and a breathless smile on his face like he hadn’t fully processed it.

You just stared at him.

“Half a second?” you whispered, in total disbelief.

He nodded. “Half a second.”

You crossed the room in two steps and threw your arms around him.

He clung to you like he needed you to keep him grounded, his heart pounding fast against your chest. “I needed this,” he said, voice cracking just a little. “You have no idea how much I needed this.”

You didn’t say anything. Just buried your face in his shoulder and held on tighter.

Because he was right.

And tomorrow, there’d be a race. Pressure. More chaos. But tonight?

Tonight was for him.