Chapter Text
When Imogen Moore got the budget to start her road towards Formula One media accreditation, she screeched loud enough for the whole of Monaco to hear.
Seven years of travelling the world, staying in rundown motels to photograph karting races with thirty people in attendance.
Five years of showing up to F3 tracks forty-five minutes early, sprinting for the best spot, building her portfolio.
And five years at Carnegie Sports Press.
She’d called her mom in excitement, and received sincere congratulations, but there was a note of sadness in it.
Evelyn Moore knew her daughter had worked hard for this but also knew that this would mean her daughter would be home even less than she was now.
And she was right.
Imogen was used to living out of her suitcase. She learned from those five years to limit her possessions to fit inside a suitcase and a carry-on bag.
Even when she’d started working for Carnegie Sports Press, which gave her the opportunity to have a home base in Monaco, she never stayed in the same place for long.
Carnegie was mostly focused on football, tennis, and every other sport but motorsports.
It was there she met her now best friend, Amelie—a journalist and fellow motorsport enthusiast. Together, they had created a small section on motorsports, which they worked tirelessly on.
But to grow it, they needed to start attending more races.
They had dreamed of being an accredited Formula 1 media institution but knew they had a long way to go.
In four years, the media company had grown at a breakneck pace.
They’d pitched to executives at Carnegie, showing how much motorsport—especially F1—had grown in recent years, to convince them to give them the budget necessary to start the accreditation process.
The FIA required attendance of at least fourteen Grand Prix the previous season for a permanent media pass and doing so was not cheap.
They had finally gotten the budget. They did it.
But it was small.
Imogen had a sinking feeling that they would have to sleep in many seedy motels and eat cheap ramen to make it work.
The constant travelling and jet lag during those races were also difficult to endure, and they weren’t even doing it for the whole season.
But it didn’t matter to them because Amelie and Imogen knew this was what they had worked for.
Their dream.
Amelie and Imogen had 14 races to convince the FIA they deserved a permanent media pass, and Carnegie that investing in Formula One long-term would give them exposure and revenue.
From Imogen’s perspective, that first weekend of the 2023 season in Bahrain was incredible for Amelie.
Their motel wasn’t too seedy; the plane ride over was calm, no drama at customs.
All things considered, Amelie's job for the weekend was quite easy.
The story of Red Bull building a car so incredible that they topped the timesheets the entire weekend, with their miracle driver at the helm practically wrote itself.
Plus, Max Verstappen was known for his blunt comments to the media, most of them being instant virality fodder.
It wouldn’t be difficult to capture viewership if Max was the subject.
She loved her time working in the media center, writing her story as she watched the races and even managed to secure one post-race interview slot with Esteban Ocon in the Media Pen.
Amelie’s stories had a steady viewership; she got to chat with other F1 journalists, some of whom were her heroes, and a pay raise was on the way; she was sure of it.
The weekend was amazing and basically everything she’d ever wished for.
Imogen on the other hand... loved her job.
She did.
The early runs. The paddock chatter. The chaos at the gates.
Lining up at the entrance of the paddock as the drivers arrived to capture that perfect shot.
Photographer jersey on, as close as possible to the gates of a track to shoot the cars during free practices.
It was her dream come true.
So, when she finally had her dream within reach, being able to attend races consistently, work along with some of her idols in formula one photography, all with her best friend –
She should have been ecstatic.
There was just one problem.
One that slowly killed every ounce of the confidence she’d brought to the weekend.
That first race of the 2023 season was dominated by one narrative, one single person.
So of course everyone wanted a picture of him; any pictures they could get their hands on would sell.
The thing was, Imogen Moore, a photographer with seven years of experience and a portfolio she trusted, could not photograph Max Verstappen.
This was either some terrible twist of fate, or someone had put a curse on her.
Shooting Oscar Piastri or Logan Sargent? No problem.
George Russell? Absolutely, he had great cheekbones which cast pleasant shadows over his face.
Even Lewis Hamilton, one who continuously avoided photographers using back-alley entrances to the paddock, was easier than photographing Max Verstappen.
It was not for lack of opportunity, the man was at every interview, every podium, every post-race debrief. He would have been a perfectly available subject at any time.
But every single picture Imogen took of Max Verstappen looked worse than any other picture she had ever taken.
They lacked the vibrancy of her usual work.
There was no life in them.
Flat. Dull. Boring.
She was horrified. And annoyed.
She had never been unable to capture a great photo of someone.
For her job, this was a problem.
Pictures of F1 drivers were hot commodities. She could sell them to other news sites, though Amelie had first pick of her catalogue whenever she published an article.
Imogen also knew that she should be satisfied with finally having a steady income for the first time in a long, long time.
It wasn’t much at all; most of it covered her rent, food and not much else. If her and Amelie ever wanted to take that vacation to Greece, she’d had to save up for a year, maybe more.
Though, Imogen had never been poor.
She was born in Monaco, her mother was an accomplished lawyer, her father worked as a financial adviser.
But ever since she had moved out, she’d been determined to figure out her own situation.
Imogen wanted independence, security, and respect. All of which she knew she could only achieve through working harder than anyone else.
She had travelled the world on her own dime, did gigs for drivers for pennies, all to gain the experience, and more importantly connections.
Imogen hated networking more than anything else ever.
But she had to become great at it.
Play the game.
Her parents offered help.
Imogen refused at least sixty percent of the time.
So this Max Verstappen issue scared her, not because she was afraid of failure.
Because this was not the time for Imogen to start to fail.
Not now, when she and Amelie were so close.
The rest of the weekend, fueled by panic, Imogen had almost exclusively photographed Max, and all of them were nearly unusable.
When she’d told Amelie that she couldn’t give her any pictures of him, her friend was exasperated with her. “Imogen, the man is the story of the weekend, he won the race 11 seconds ahead of his teammate!” She paced around their small motel room, her laptop open and forgotten on her bed.
Amelie turned to her, “How can you expect me to publish a story of him without any pictures of him?”.
Imogen dropped down on her motel bed and sighed, “I’m sorry, I've been trying all weekend, but I've got nothing.” She tried to go for optimism, “Maybe it’s just the beginning of the season. Nerves. I’ll be able to pin him down eventually.”
"Well, make it fast. I don’t want to put too much pressure on you,” She gave her a pointed look, “but Carnegie will not have the same reservations.”
Imogen nodded gravely, “I know. I’ll get you something, whatever it takes."
That night, Amelie had bought a picture of Max from one of the Red Bull photographers, Luca, for her article instead.
This only motivated Imogen to take even MORE pictures of Verstappen at the next Grand Prix, in Jeddah.
Imogen prided herself on her ability to learn and adapt, and she had dedicated every single spare moment to address this problem.
She had an entire folder spanning over five hundred past pictures of just him taken by other photographers.
They spanned all the way to his first races in 2016. She felt as though she knew his every angle.
She had stared into his blue eyes far too much.
When she closed her eyes the night before media day, she fell asleep with the sound of Amelie’s breathing.
And she dreamed of him.
It wasn’t obsession, she told herself; it was determination.
On Thursday, when Max Verstappen had walked into the paddock for media day, staring ahead, Red Bull cap and team polo on, Imogen was ready.
She had her lens pointed at him and tried to let her usual instincts guide her.
Low to the ground, she could hear nothing but her breathing and her shutter clicking.
Only thirty seconds had gone by, but she had taken at least a hundred pictures of him.
He seemed oblivious to all the photographers tracking him like snipers.
Once he’d passed, smiling, she excitedly flipped through the photos on her camera.
As she clicked, she felt her smile slowly fading.
This was bad.
She’d turned towards Max Verstappen’s retreating form and couldn’t help but glare.
Her hands were white-knuckling her camera.
Objectively, he had nothing to do with her issue. Still, she cursed him in her head.
She pivoted back and found Luca frowning at her expression. That was her sign to leave.
She quickly packed up and fled to the media centre.
Max Verstappen seemed like he would once again dominate the race weekend.
He had topped all three Free Practices, and the chatter around the paddock, from Amelie and the other media personnel, seemed to agree he would be the one to top qualifying as well.
This frustrated Imogen to no end; she had well over a five hundred pictures of him from Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but no matter how much she tried, they all came out... well she had closed her laptop in annoyance.
There was no joy to be had in editing terrible photos.
Imogen turned to Amelie from her desk in the media center. “Amelie," she groaned, "this is fucking hopeless. I can’t take photos of him! What the hell is wrong with me?”
Imogen ran her hands through her hair and and fought the urge to scream. “If I can’t figure out what’s wrong, this is going to be a long season.”
Amelie gently patted her shoulder and grimaced, “Maybe you can ask Luca for some tips?”
Imogen leaned back and glared at the ceiling, muttering, “Oh god.”
"You've got to admit you need help."
"Yeah, yeah," Imogen said, not even trying to contain her annoyance.
Luca Howard was an accredited Red Bull photographer; they’d met two years earlier at some Formula One related networking event and mildly hit it off.
Tall, brown eyes, brown hair, and a cute smile. They had talked for most of the night.
They’d also slept together that night. They were both a little tipsy.
She knew it probably wouldn’t happen again. They’ve kept in touch over the last few years. Imogen didn’t have many friends, but he felt like one of them.
He had never shied away from asking for her help, and she always liked to give him advice.
Imogen never asked him for his.
She knew she needed it this time. She just really, really did not want to ask Luca for his.
She was used to figuring out her own problems. And this one was just plain embarrassing. But unfortunately, this one clearly needed divine intervention.
Just before Qualifying, Imogen tracked down Luca outside the Red Bull hospitality and practically begged him to help her with shooting Verstappen.
He stared at her with mild befuddlement, “Just shoot him like you would any other subject, Imogen. He's not going to smile for the camera, but it’s fairly easy to get candids of him.”
She’d shaken her head, increasingly aware she sounded insane, “Luca, you’re not listening to me. I need to shadow you just this once, I need to see how you shoot him. To understand. Please.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “No, you’re right; I guess I really don’t understand the issue. Your picture of Norris from yesterday was gorgeous!”
She took her phone out of her bag as he kept rambling. “You have a strong portfolio, I’ve seen your work—it’s great! You must agree it’s a little ridiculous to say that you just can’t photograph someone right?”
She selected a picture she took of Max this morning and turned the phone towards him.
His eyes widened.
He looked at her. Back to the phone. Back at her. Great, it was that bad.
She glared at him, spoke in an attempt at a measured tone, “Luca...”
His lips twitched, fighting a smile.
She felt her left eye start twitching.
He coughed to contain a laugh. “It – it’s not bad”. He coughed again.
Imogen seriously considered hitting him. But dear god she really needed him to save her from herself.
She huffed and pointed to the picture. “See? Now you understand. There’s no life in this picture! No story!” She put the phone away and sighed, “We only just started the accreditation process, Luca. I need to be able to take at least one competent photo of him before the season ends.”
He continued to stare at her, face contorting.
She rolled her eyes at him, “Just laugh. Get it out of your system.”
He shook his head, smiling, “No, it's just – I didn’t expect this from you, of all people. You have the photography version of writer’s block,” he said. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”
Imogen gritted her teeth. "Neither did I!" she hissed.
He rubbed his jaw and exhaled another small laugh, “It also feels weird for you to ask me for help”.
She sighed and tugged at her top, “Trust me; it feels just as weird from my end. Just please help me, man. I honestly don't know where to go from here”.
He studied her for a minute before shrugging, “Ok. Just – you can follow me around during qualifying –”
She threw her arms around his torso and smiled into his chest. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou! Really.” He patted her back awkwardly.
When she stepped back, he grimaced, “Imogen, it’s no problem at all, really. But please – don’t stare at Max like you did this morning. It looked like you wanted to strangle him.”
“Oh,” she muttered, already turning away, “you have no idea.”