THREE

"I feel like I've been hit by a train."

Zahra Bailey sipped desperately at her double espresso, sunglasses covering her eyes as she sat in Toro Rosso's hospitality.  

"You look like you've been hit by a train." Larissa teased her best friend as she sat opposite her. She had a meeting in a couple of hours and had dragged Zahra out of bed to join her at the garage of her new team in preparations for the Australian grand prix.

"Thank you for your kind words, best friend of mine." Zahra rolled her eyes before she immediately winced from the pain of the action.

"Do you even remember meeting Valterri?" Larissa questioned, seeing her best friend's head shoot up from where it was resting in her arms.

"Excuse me, what?" Zahra's mouth dropped wide open. She definitely did not remember it at all.

"He was looking after you, even when you were a drunken mess." Larissa couldn't help but smile. Zahra had met her favorite driver, but couldn't remember it because of the drinks that she had for a confidence boost that had wiped her out completely.

"Oh my god, I want to run, hide and then die alone so I never have to face him again."

The Brazilian shook her head as she laughed. "You shouldn't have booked tickets for all of my races then."

"I'm regretting wanting to be your supportive bestie already." Zahra groaned, allowing her head to fall on to the table that they were sitting at, causing a loud bang to echo throughout the room.

"Merde!"

Pierre Gasly took a seat beside his new teammate, having almost dropped his coffee due to her best friend making him jump. He too looked rather rough, and he seemed to wince and squint at the bright lights.

"I am never drinking again. I can't believe I have to train later." Pierre whined, frowning when he heard quiet giggle from beside him.

"We all know you'll drink again, and you'll get way too drunk again." Larissa rolled her eyes. She was thankful for her high alcohol tolerance, since she was the only one who didn't have a hangover.

"Nope. Not happening." Pierre groaned, closing his eyes to hopefully end his suffering.

"If you're anything like Lis, you'll drink your own body weight in alcohol." Zahra grumbled from where her face was squished into the table.

"Your savior is here!" A loud voice boomed through the Toro Rosso garage causing both victims of a hangover to groan at the loud noise.

"Estie!" Larissa shot up from seat, sending it clattering to the ground, to run to her old friend from karting.

"Hey, Lar, how are the zombies doing?" Esteban Ocon smiled, handing the Brazilian a brown paper bag, which was full of baked goods from a small bakery near his hotel.

"About to eat your brains." Zahra muttered, using Pierre's arm as a pillow.

"Rawr." Pierre added on as he tried to go back to sleep.

"They're... breathing." Larissa laughed, leaning against her old friend as they watched the two hungover people try to sleep, using each other as their pillows.

"You've got a meeting later, right?" Esteban asked. Larissa nodded her head. "Come to our garage, Checo wants to meet you."

"I said I would go and see Lewis, then Kimi and then I'll probably be hiding from Daniel." Larissa admitted.

"Already? The season hasn't even started and you're having to hide from a driver? What did you do?" Esteban spoke with amusement in his tone.

"I put out a tweet saying that Daniel was my second favorite Australian."

"Second?"

Larissa shook her head with a small smile. "First was Troye Sivan. I don't think he liked it."

"I'll help you hide from Daniel, if you meet Checo."

"Estie, you've just got yourself a deal."

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"You must be Checo."

"Hola Conejito." Sergio 'Checo' Perez greeted the young woman with a small smile, though it turned in to a confused one when he noticed that she was being flanked by his young teammate.

"Daniel wants to feed her to a Kangaroo." Esteban noted his teammates confused face, which soon lit up in to a bright smile as he laughed.

"The tweet?" Larissa nodded. "Do not worry, he is not even in my list of top ten Australian's."

"You." Larissa pointed to the Mexican man. "I like you. I'm keeping you."

"I said that we would hide her from the angry honey badger if she would come to our garage and meet you." Esteban informed Checo.

"Ah, I see." The Mexican nodded with a soft smile. "I wanted to meet the daughter of the legend Luiz Cohen. Robert told me that you were in formula one this season and I just had to meet you."

"Awww, is somebody a fan of me?" Larissa pouted, sticking out her bottom lip, placing her hand over her heart.

"He prefers you to me and I'm his team mate." Esteban spoke, motioning towards the Mexican man who nodded his head.

"That is true."

"Well, it's an honor to have you in the Larissa Cohen fan club." Larissa beamed.

"Larissa Cohen fan club? Didn't I start that when you beat me at karting in Germany?" Esteban smiled fondly at the memory.

She had been upset when her mother didn't show up for the race, and so one of her uncles, Fernando Alonso, was there to support her. She had beat his ass on the track so he had mentioned that he would be starting a fan club for her.

"Zahra is the CEO, you are the founder." Larissa smirked, before her eyes widened to the size of saucers as she noticed a figure watching her in the distance from behind the French man. "Merda!"

"LARISSA COHEN HOW DARE YOU! I AM THE BEST AUSTRALIAN AND YOUR FAVORITE!"

Daniel Ricciardo didn't care when he ran in to the Force India garage, all he wanted was to make sure that Larissa Cohen admitted that he was her favorite Australian.

Larissa squealed as she ran away, fleeing the Force India garage with the Red Bull driver in hot pursuit.

Daniel was surprised how fast the five foot two girl could run, he didn't expect her to practically fly through the paddock as he chased her down, but he wasn't going to give up.

"You wanna see some real speed, bitch." Larissa yelled as she ran, seeing her Uncle Seb smiling at her running, a phone in his hand signalling that he was filming.

"Come back here Lara! You have to admit that I'm the best Australian!" Daniel yelled as he ran. He was slowly catching up to her, but she was still incredibly fast for a girl with short legs.

"No way! It's Hugh Jackman!"

Larissa decided to use drivers as human shields. She practically threw Romain Grosjean to the ground to slow the aussie down, Lance Stroll was then pushed in to Romain, causing Daniel to jump over the two men who struggled to push themselves to their feet.

She knew that her uncles were enjoying seeing her flee far too much to help her, and Lewis would just hand her over to be annoying, so instead of running to people who would let him tickle her to death until she submitted, she fled into a garage that she hoped would help her evade the Red Bull driver.

"CARLOS! NICO! AJUDA!"

Workers in the Renault garage laughed as the five foot two driver that was Larissa Cohen from Toro Rosso ran towards their two drivers. She practically leapt behind the two, whose faces were red from laughing.

"Por favor, proteja-me." Larissa hid behind Carlos, happiness and relief flooding her as she noticed that his arms were out at his sides to stop Daniel from getting around him and getting to her.

"Tell me that I'm the best Australian." Daniel stalked his way closer as Nico side stepped, out of the drama whilst he sipped at his coffee.

"No, it's Chris Hemsworth." Larissa gripped Carlos' arms as if they were the only thing keeping her alive, which quite frankly, they were.

Carlos' cheeks were tinged pink as he felt the girls grip gripping his biceps as he protected her from the Ricciardo man who kept edging closer to them as if he was a lion going in for the kill.

"Daniel, hey buddy, how are you doing?"

Daniel Ricciardo's head turned as Sergio Perez spoke to him, distracting him as he engaged in conversation with the Mexican.

"I'm doing good mate, how are you?" Daniel smiled at the man who he was friends with.

"Oh you know, the usual. Planning the wedding, worried about the car..." Checo subtly waved his hand, signalling for Larissa to sneak away whilst he distracted the man.

"Oh yeah, how's the wedding plans going?" Daniel almost completely forgot about what he was doing moments before, since he was now engaging in a conversation with a friend.

Larissa took that as her chance to flee, she whispered a thank you to the Spanish Renault driver, kissing his cheek in gratitude, missing the blush that coated his features, before she crept away from Daniel and out of the Renault garage before she chose to hide in another garage so he wouldn't be able to find her when he realised that Checo had deliberately been a distraction.

Marcus Ericsson noticed her sneaking into the Sauber garage, and with a small smile, he pushed her in the direction of his new team mate, Charles.

"Come on, I'll hide you." Charles Leclerc smiled softly as she immediately ran to him, as he helped her hide. He didn't really care of he got in trouble for having a rival in the garage, he just wanted her to like him.

"Mon héros."

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Free practise for both Toro Rosso's were not great.

Larissa had been hit by Kevin Magnussen from Haas. He had hit her back wheel on the left side, sending her in to a spin that also happened to send her in to Sergey Sirotkin of Williams which then sent him into a wall.

Thankfully Sergey was fine, and Kevin had apologised but Larissa wasn't exactly happy.

As for Pierre, he seemed to have an engine problem as soon as he put his foot on the pedal. The second free practise for him wasn't much better as he had spun out just when he thought he was getting somewhere.

The first formula one qualifying wasn't too bad for one of them.

Pierre had only just been able to make it in to Q2, which was where both drivers were expected to be eliminated.

Their cars weren't meant to battle with the times of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes, so for Larissa to make it in to Q3 with a time just slower than the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, was a massive shock for essentially the whole grid.

"Did I just beat Bottas?"

"Hell yeah you did!" Her radio engineer cheered through the radio as the Brazilian laughed, she couldn't quite believe it. "You're sixth Cohen, you killed it!"

She was going to show the world just what Larissa Cohen could do.

She was going to make her father proud.

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A/N

I didn't do a massive race section because I didn't want to make it too long, but here we go!

Go and kick ass Larissa, we'll see you all for the next one!

-RUBY ❤️