Chapter Text
A small metal chair comes into frame, placed in the middle of the frame and in front of a dark grey backdrop. The mic picks up movement from the camera crew setting up. Small white subtitles appear
“Just over here?”
A person comes into the shot, sits down on the chair, and fixes their cap
“Do I look good?”
“Always.” someone behind the camera says. The person sitting down shoots them a wink before turning their attention to someone else behind the camera.
“Please state your name and who you race for.”
The camera zooms in slightly, and the person sits up straighter
“Violet Wickett, Red Bull Racing.”
-
“Ekko Sterling, Haas F1 Team.”
-
“Caitlyn Kiramman, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team……that’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it?”
Mel Medarda, F1 TV Reporter
“I grew up around karts. My mother co-owned a team for a few years, and my brother raced them for over ten. I was always around them, learning how they worked, always wanting to get my hands dirty and figure out how to make them better”
Shaky old camcorder footage of a young Mel looking over a kart and talking to someone next to her
“I went to university to study journalism. So when I found out I could mix my love for racing with my degree, it was a no brainer”
Violet Wickett, Red Bull Racing
“I was quite late to get into karting, well, a year or two later than normal. But that was only because we didn't have a lot of money back then. My old man could see how much I wanted to race, so he saved everything he could so that I would be able to.
Old footage of a little kart racing around a track, crossing the finish line, and a little arm pumping up into the air
“The second I sat in that seat, I knew that this was what I was going to do with my life. I was going to do everything in my power to make it to the top one day, and well, here I am”
Footage cuts back to Vi sitting in the interview chair, smirking at the interviewer, waiting for the next question.
Ekko Sterling, Haas
“I honestly had no interest in racing, but I was dragged along to one of Vi’s races once when I was a kid, and I couldn't take my eyes off the karts. The sound was deafening in the best way. I went to every one of her races that year and begged my dad to let me race. I wasn't always the quickest on track, but my consistency was what got teams to notice me. It's funny, I’m kind of the middle between the other two. Vi is fast, a little reckless sometimes, and Cait is strategic, even if she doesn't have the fastest car on track, she makes sure it doesn't feel that way.”
Caitlyn Kiramman, Mercedes
“My parents put me in a kart before I could even walk. Okay, no, that's not true, but it might as well be. My mother comes from a long line of motorsport heroes. She even raced herself when she was younger, but then she had me and stopped. She moved to a more ‘sensible occupation’”
Old footage of a young Cassandra in karting, winning countless races
“I was always fascinated by cars, but it wasn't until I started going to some races with Jayce that I saw how fun it could be. He is a couple of years older than me, so he’s been racing longer than I can remember. He taught me how to get stronger, how to read data, and how to properly take the apex.”
Footage cuts to younger Jayce and Caitlyn fixing his kart. Jayce describing in extra detail everything he was doing.
“Sure, my mother had all the experience, but it felt better coming from Jayce, someone who was a similar age, someone who wouldn't yell at you for every little mistake you made.” Caitlyn chuckled to herself
“I won a few karting championships, moved into F4, then F3 the year after, and spent two years there. I won the F3 championship and then became the youngest F2 rookie in history the next season.”
Old interviews and news panels of the breaking news
“Breaking news out of the F2 paddock, Prema Racing has officially signed Caitlyn Kiramman for next season. Doing so will make her the youngest rookie in F2’s history. This is an amazing moment for Kiramman and her family”
“Kiramman has shown over the past few years that she is more than capable of stepping into F1. She's too young to be an F1 driver, so she will have to either sit in F2 for a few years, or she can win the championship next year and sit as a reserve driver for an F1 team for a couple of years before she's 18.”
“I stepped into that seat the following year and stormed ahead in the championship. I knew it was a risk to win the first year and have to wait until I was 18. But I needed to prove to myself and any teams that still had any doubts that I was more than ready”
“Can you talk about your crash?”
“Yeah, that…”
July 8th, 2018 - Silverstone F2 Feature Race
Footage is cut in of Caitlyn sitting in her car and fixing her gloves.
“That was a strange day. I woke up feeling like something was wrong. I couldn’t shake it, I even had the engineers go over my car three extra times just to make sure. It’s like I knew something bad was about to happen.”
More footage shows her walking around the paddock, talking with engineers, signing merchandise for fans and taking pictures.
“It was a normal weekend, normal practice, simple qualifying, even the race itself was fine until lap 17”
“This has been such a thrilling race so far, chaos at the start, the battle at the top 3 keeps changing. This could be anyone’s race!”
“We are on lap 17 here at Silverstone. OH KIRAMMAN MAKES A MOVE! She's into P2, can Caitlyn Kiramman tie for the record of most race wins at her home race? Folks, you're just going to have to wait-.....oh no”
Footage cuts to Caitlyn's onboard cam, large letters ‘Lap 17’ come up in white as audio from her radio with her race engineer plays over the top.
“Okay, Cait, keep this pace, you're faster than the car ahead by .7 a lap.”
“Yeah, copy.”
Mel Medarda
“Crashes are common in motorsports, most of the time it's a simple mistake, drivers going over the edge and crashing into each other. But then there are some, where the entire crowd goes silent, over 150,000 people, all deadly silent watching as debris flies everywhere and dust settles over a car.”
Footage cuts back to Caitlyn’s onboard. Caitlyn changes gears as she's at turn 7, following the racing line perfectly through turn 8 and preparing for turn 9 when her car suddenly snaps, her hands still holding onto the steering wheel jerk violently. The wheels hit the gravel and the car starts its first flip.
“Seeing a car flip once is terrifying, you're just praying that the safety measures put in place are enough to keep the driver safe before the marshalls can pull them out. But when a car flips 9 times before crashing, upside down against the barriers….you hold your breath just that little bit longer”
Audio cuts in of Caitlyn’s onboard radio
“Fuck….”
“Caitlyn? Caitlyn, do you copy? Are you okay?”
The only audio response is of Caitlyn breathing heavily.
Caitlyn
“I didn’t know what was happening. My head was killing me. I could tell I was upside down but I couldn’t feel anything below my shoulders. I just knew something was wrong.”
Footage of the wreckage plays, the dust still settling over the debris on the track.
“Caitlyn, can you hear me?”
“Shocking scenes here with Caitlyn Kiramman crashing straight into the barriers at turn 9. It’s like her car just snapped to the left. We don’t know if she’s responded yet. We are all just hoping that she’s okay.”
“I could smell it before I saw it, it was awful. I couldn't feel anything either, but I knew what was happening.”
Black screen with subtitles appear as more of her radio plays
“Fuck. Shit. I can't move. Help!”
“ They teach you how to get out of your car in a crash, they even time you to make sure you get out quickly enough. What they don’t test you on is what to do if you're suddenly paralysed and your car is on fire.”
A shaky phone video of the crash shows a small explosion and the entire crowd gasps as the car sets on fire.
Jayce Talis, McLaren
“I was watching it live, I was at my apartment, not too far from the track with Cait’s parents. She was about to tie for a record at her home race. It was meant to be amazing, but lap 17 came, and everything happened so fast but it also felt like it was all in slow motion at the same time. I remember watching the car flip over and over, I looked to my left where Cassandra was sitting and I've never seen someone look so scared and Tobias, well he must have super speed or something because that man was already out the door.”
Ekko
“Yeah, that was horrifying. I was still in karts back then. I was watching it with Vi at a small bar in London. We both knew Caitlyn from karting, you just tend to meet other drivers when you're moving around the paddocks. But watching that car go up in flames the way that it did…yeah, I genuinely thought she was dead.”
The entire bar went silent, everyone was watching the footage of the wreckage. The silence was deafening, not only from the bar but the broadcast too, it was like the whole world was holding its breath. The muffled bang from the mic startled Vi before the flames erupted, there's no way someone could walk away- Vi was going to be sick. She jumped off her chair and sprinted for the bathroom.
Caitlyn
“I don’t remember anything after that. I passed out from the pain or the heat, I don’t know. I’ve watched the footage back though. Seeing how one of the marshalls pulled me out from my seat while the car was still on fire. He’s honestly probably the only reason I survived.”
“I get you’re worried, but you gotta stop pacing, you’re making me dizzy”
Vi stopped and stared daggers at Powder
“Geez, okay, sorry”
Vi sat down on the couch, putting her head in her hands and sighed. She had known Caitlyn for a few years by this point, they kept in contact a lot even with their crazy schedules. Always congratulating the other on their wins. Vi remembered the day Cait told her she was going to F2. She had to get a new phone after that, screaming and congratulating Caitlyn so loudly that the microphone on her phone broke. A small smile appeared on Vi’s face at the memory.
“She awake?”
Vi snapped her head up to see Powder was on the phone
“What hospital?”
The person on the other end of the call said something that Vi couldn’t make out.
“Okay, yeah. We’re gonna come by, I’ll bring Vi.”
Powder ended the call and stood up
“Up you hop, we’re going to go see your girlfriend.”
Vi sighed as she stood from her seat and muttered under her breath
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
Caitlyn
“I was in a coma for three weeks. The doctors were surprised I even woke up. They even told my parents that they should prepare for me not waking up. But my mother wasn’t hearing any of it. I’m pretty sure she made the doctor cry.”
“Jayce! Where is she? Is she okay?”
Jayce stood up from his seat in the hallway, just opposite Caitlyn’s hospital room.
“No, not really.”
Vi could feel her heart shatter in that moment.
“Both her wrists are broken, they got trapped under the wheel as it flipped, her suit did hardly anything against the flames, and she has a massive burn on her back and around her shoulder…..”
Vi looked at Jayce, he was clearly holding something back, he turned to look at the door to the room.
“Jayce?”
He looked back at Vi and tried opening his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“Spit it out, pretty boy, or I’m bursting into that room.”
“Her uh- her back-“
His voice broke as he sniffed back tears
“It’s broken, really high up, almost at her neck. She was screaming that she couldn’t move to her engineer. Vi, they think she’s paralysed.”
Vi took a step back. She must’ve heard him wrong, that can’t be true. Jayce sat back in his seat and started crying into his hands. Vi looked at the door and slowly made her way over. Her heart started getting faster as she gripped the handle, and she took a steadying breath before her stomach and heart dropped at the sight of Caitlyn in the bed, wires all over her and her entire torso and left shoulder covered in bandages. She pulled a chair to the side of her bed and very lightly wrapped her hand around Caitlyn's left one.
“Hey, cupcake. I don't even know if you can hear me. But I know how much of a fighter you are, so you gotta fight, okay?
Not wanting to hurt her, she bent her head down and lightly kissed the back of Caitlyn’s hand before resting her head on the edge of her bed and listening to the heart rate monitor.
Jayce
“Those three weeks were the longest three weeks of my life. When she woke up, she couldn’t speak, she just stared at everyone, all confused. So for her to make the turn around she did….I've never been more proud of her. She put herself through so much physical therapy, she wasn’t letting a broken back stop her from achieving her dreams.”
March 7th, 2020 - F1 TV reporter Mel Medarda breaks the news of Caitlyn’s return.
“Unbelievable news breaking this evening. 608 days since her devastating crash. Caitlyn Kiramman is officially back in a car and out on track. We can confirm that she is currently driving at the Bahrain International Circuit.”
Shaky phone camera footage was taken from really far away, clearly by someone who couldn't get close to the track. It showed Caitlyn driving around in her car, noticeably quite slow, but the person recording cheered regardless.
Vi
“You know, she won’t admit it, but I think the only reason she came back was because of me. I was the brand new thing in town, she was threatened.”
Vi shrugged and tried putting on her iconic cocky smile, but the camera didn't miss her eyes flashing something else, one second, it was there, then it was gone again, it was almost as if she looked like she was in pain, maybe even heartbroken.
“Can you talk a bit more about Caitlyn?”
“What about her?”
“Well, you two have a long history, dating back to when you were both in karts.”
Vi shifted uncomfortably in her seat
“Uh yeah, I mean, there’s a few drivers I’ve known for a while now.”
“But none of them compare to the rivalry you and Caitlyn have.”
Footage cuts in of interviews of Vi and Caitlyn, getting very heated
“It was my ******* line!”
“She has no sense of the rules, she’s reckless. She needs to stop before someone gets hurt.”
Mel
“These athletes are under so much pressure, not just physically, but mentally, meaning emotions run a little high sometimes. So yes, of course, there's going to be some things said that shouldn't be repeated.”
Footage of a mix of drivers arguing with each other or about one another to interviewers, noticeably a certain red-haired driver is in most of the shots.
“So when you have a season with three new rookies who couldn't be more different from each other in the way they interact with the press and other drivers, yes, they were bound to clash.”
Vi
“Look, it’s no secret that I don’t see eye to eye with her. But it’s a very intense sport, emotions run high.”
“You guys seemed to have been professional, friendly, even when you came into this year, but something changed throughout the 22 races. Why was that?”
The camera stays on Vi’s face, her heart started racing
“You should ask her.”