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A dream

I arrive very hard on the chicane, I jump on the brakes, the pedal is very hard and returns all the roughness of the track. I go through the chicane, left-right on the steering wheel, I pick up speed, the rear is unstable, I have to control the acceleration. Unfortunately, this has been the car's weak point since the start of the season; the rear axle is quite stubborn.
I would like to be able to become one with the machine but for the moment the graft is not taking, I have to fight with the steering wheel when exiting the corner.
Finally, I managed to stabilize the car, I controlled the acceleration, and gradually I found myself with my foot to the floor to start the straight. The acceleration is intense, I feel the thrust throughout my body, I pass in front of the pit wall, the signage tells me that I am in the lead of the race. Michael is two seconds away, I can see him in my mirrors. With the vibrations, it looks like a twirling insect, a small animal with green and blue reflections, whose oscillations paint an impressionist picture in the tiny frame of the rear-view mirror.
Now the car is launched at full speed, the symphony of the engine pushed to its maximum speed becomes deafening.
And I feel, there, behind my back, the incessant comings and goings of the ten pistons which constitute this mechanical cathedral. I hear the fury of its majestic organs resonating throughout the cabin and through my entire body.
The asphalt passes at full speed, the track becomes a parallel dimension and straight ahead there is a curve deviating slightly to the left.
A curve, so to speak, because it has been trading at full speed for years. But it is indeed a curve because straight ahead, there is this gray wall, threatening.
I am hypnotized by this wall when suddenly I realize that the car no longer reacts to the impulses I give on the steering wheel.
And this wall becomes more and more threatening, I see it filling my field of vision, as it approaches my visor. I let go of the steering wheel and all I see is this gray wall.

The shock was terrible, I was shaken, the car was stationary but everything seemed to be rotating around me, I felt like I was at the center of a hellish ride. I gradually resume my breathing, I move my arms, my legs, finally, the environment completes its rotation and freezes, I come to my senses and raise the visor of my helmet. It was then that I decided to tear myself away from the carcass of my car.
I signal to the commissioners to let them know that everything is fine.
I see this wall, this gray wall which now bears a huge black scar, an indelible mark of the impact.
I remove my helmet, I inspect every corner of it, when, lowering the visor, I discover a huge black scar. A black of a tone similar to that observed on this wall. The stain covers the glistening yellow of my helmet and part of the green stripe that adorns it. By observing it more closely, I think I recognize the characteristic relief of the rubber of the tires. Another, darker stain seems to indicate that a suspension element has been lost there. Ten centimeters lower and the outcome would have been absolutely tragic.
I see the sky reflected in this dark and mysterious mass that usually serves as my visor, I raise my head and I see this magnificent blue sky.

This is my third retirement in three races this season. These are still precious points that have just escaped me, beating Michael in the championship promises to be an increasingly difficult task.
But I see this beautiful sky and I think of God.

Several years later…

I'm heading to the conference room, it's no longer an open secret but today is an important day, I'm going to announce the end of my Formula One career.
I sit in front of a horde of journalists, I have earpieces installed and I am surrounded by interpreters.
The conference begins, I announce that I will retire from Formula One at the end of this season. It's a tough season, there are three Grands Prix left to go and I lead the championship by a very short head in front of Mika. I would like to do like Alain and retire with a world champion title but nothing is decided. After all, I have already matched Juan-Manuel Fangio, and somehow, out of respect for this extraordinary driver, I could very well leave it there. It must be said that this man has won almost half of the Formula One Grand Prix in which he has participated. The number of titles does not mean much in the face of such daunting statistics.
This is what I explain to journalists when they ask me the question.
Of course, I would very much like to win this title Team been waiting for twenty years now.
A journalist asks me what my best memory in Formula One is. There were the victories, the titles of course, each had their own flavor. The defeats too... But what I will remember are these moments of osmosis with the car, these moments when I had the impression that the car was an extension of my own body, like a chimera, a creature fantastic whose sole quest is the perpetual search for speed. Or those moments outside of time when, plunged into a daze, I had the power to indefinitely push the limits of my machine, transforming each stroke of the steering wheel into a merciless fight against all those fragile little seconds that the hand forms of the stopwatch.

A huge chaos tears me from my sleep. I no longer know where I am, for a few seconds I am lost, without any bearings. Just as I'm about to put an end to the torture of my alarm going off, everything lights up, the clock reads seven o'clock, a new week begins, and I have to get ready for class. I go down the stairs to the kitchen, my parents are already awake, and the radio, turned on, creates a crackling background noise.
As I slowly emerge from my sleep, my attention becomes increasingly focused on the sputtering sound of the radio. This goes around in a loop about the drama of the day before. While these events, even though I had seen them live on television, had seemed abstract to me, now I realized. I will never again see the incredible ballet, the precise choreography of the trajectories traced by Ayrton.