Next Saturday
The garage was quieter than usual.
Not the comforting quiet that comes with focus and discipline, but the kind that follows disappointment—that dull, tired hush that settles when everyone is too polite or too deflated to speak.
Sukhman pulled off his helmet, the faint hiss of the release feeling like a sigh. Sweat clung to his brow, and his hair stuck to the padding inside the helmet. He handed it off to a waiting technician and unzipped his suit halfway, taking in slow breaths as if trying to delay the inevitable.
The qualifying laps were done.
And he had barely managed ninth.
Ninth. The number felt like a splinter lodged deep under the skin.
The team had watched the whole thing—a sequence of laps that never came together. Missed apexes. Early braking. Slight oversteers. Small mistakes that, when stacked together, cost him everything. They were all present: Siddharth, silent and tight-lipped. Arne, arms folded, jaw locked. Even the younger engineers didn't meet his eyes.
No one needed to say anything. The data spoke loud enough.
He gave a stiff nod to Siddharth and made his way out. Every step back to the driver's lounge felt like walking through invisible fog.
---
That night, the hotel room was dimly lit, the curtains pulled closed, city lights beyond them forgotten. Sukhman sat cross-legged on the bed, still in his team hoodie and sweatpants. A takeaway container lay half-eaten on the nightstand. The TV was off. Music, for once, didn't play. The only light came from his phone.
He shouldn't have opened social media.
But he did.
At first, it was just the usual commentary: fans complaining, critics nitpicking, rival team supporters gloating. But then he scrolled further.
A screenshot of his statement from the Qatar GP flashed across the screen.
"We're going to win this championship. I have no doubt."
Underneath: a barrage of laughing emojis and mocking captions.
**"The guy who peaked in three races." "Bro said this and finished 9th in quali lmao." "More confident than competent."
Then came the memes.
A side-by-side of him beaming after his first podium... and his face today, after getting out of the car. The caption read:
"When you go from 'the future of the sport' to 'who?' in three weekends."
He scrolled further.
It got worse.
One post showed a photoshopped image of him in traditional Sikh turban and racing suit, holding a samosa like a trophy, with the words: "New sponsor: Punjab Power Racing. Finishes last, but spices up the race!"
Another mockingly wrote:
"Good to see diversity in the sport. Too bad he brought his uncle's driving skills instead of his own."
His jaw clenched. He tossed the phone onto the other side of the bed, but it buzzed again. New notifications. More comments.
It isn't just ridicule.
It is personal.
Mocking his culture.
His identity.
And the pressure that had once felt heavy but manageable now pressed down like a collapsing roof.
He stared at the ceiling. The silence around him didn't soothe. It screamed.
He buried his face into his palms.
This isn't what he wanted. This isn't who he meant to be. He remembered the fire at Qatar, the thrill of overtakes, the pride in the paddock. He remembered Charlotte walking with him, her words calm but firm.
"You're being pulled away from who you are."
He hadn't understood it then. Had rejected it. Argued. Dismissed.
But now...
Now, staring at the mess, at the broken momentum and the shattered image of what could have been, he finally sees it now.
She wasn't trying to tear him down.
She was trying to stop the spiral before it started.
But he had already stepped onto the slope.
And now he was sliding.
The phone buzzed again. He ignored it.
Somewhere beyond the curtains, the city of Brisbane pulsed with weekend life. But in this room, Sukhman sat still, the noise of the world muffled by the static in his mind.
Not even the mocking voices were louder than the one thought he couldn't shake:
She was right.
He reached again for the phone, but not to scroll. This time, to write.
A message to Charlotte sat half-typed for ten minutes.
Then, slowly, he deleted it.
He wasn't ready to say anything.
Not yet.
He had to show it first.
The next day, the race awaited.
But tonight, all he could do was sit with the weight of what he had become, what he had done so far.
And begin, quietly, painfully, to reckon with how to become something else.