Chapter Text
It’s almost fall when Logan’s phone rings. The air in Florida just pushed past unbearably hot and well into pure humidity. He had been lying on the tiled floor of his home when his phone rings, the sharp trill awaking him from whatever trance the heat had him in. Without lifting off the ground, Logan presses the ‘accept’ button, flicking his phone across the floor and to somewhere by his face.
“It’s Logan..” He groans, probably to his mom, or dad, or brother, or whoever. He can’t bring himself to care, not when he can feel his skin melting off his bones.
“Hi, Logan, it’s Jenson! Jenson Button?” The voice asks. As if Logan wouldn’t recognize who Jenson was. Not when Jenson was there when-
“Yeah, Jenson, hey man, how’s it going?” he says, slurred, more so to cut off his train of thought. Logan can’t register the words coming out of his mouth, not when he can barely comprehend that it’s Jenson on the other end of the line.
But of course it is. There’s no way he wouldn’t recognize the voice of the man whom he had watched win on screen while he grew up. The man whom he had listened to every weekend discuss the race. The man who was there when Logan was-
“I’ve been doing pretty well actually! I don’t know how much you’ve been keeping up with the grid from over there, but things have certainly shifted!” He laughs like it’s a normal thing that happens every year.
Like it didn’t happen to Logan.
Imagine you are standing on the edge of your very own tectonic plate.
Tectonic plates make up the Earth’s crust and upper mantle. They are constantly shifting and moving every day, converging, diverging, and transforming.
Imagine you are standing on the edge of your very own tectonic plate and you’ve crossed it in its entirety to reach this point where you are right now.
The shift is slow at first, around as fast as your fingernails can grow, but every so often it slips. It moves too fast; it's an earthquake.
Imagine you are standing on the edge of your very own tectonic plate, and the one thing you’ve ever wanted lies right on the other side of that plate. You just have to step one foot over the crevice, and you’ve almost made it.
But it’s summer, and your nails always grew faster in summer.
You haven’t found your footing yet, so you’ve slipped down through the convergence, where the plates have pressed up against each other. By the time you find your footing again, you’re back where it all began.
Except your home is not your home anymore, and you can’t go back to the place you do call home ever again.
Because the truth is that Logan knows what’s going on in the grid. He’s known since his shoes touched American soil for the first time without having to jet off to another destination in a few weeks. He’s known because every weekend the TV is turned on to watch 20 cars take off, without him.
Logan knows that the grid has completely flipped with Cadillac joining next year, Fernando and Lewis retiring, and subsequently becoming team principals alongside a plethora of other retired drivers. Not to mention the hell that is the driver market.
But Jenson doesn’t know that. He continues.
“So you may or may not know that I’ll be heading up Cadillac for next year,”
Logan knows that.
“And since a Brit and a Chinaman can’t just be the face of an American team— wait this isn’t coming out right at all…”
Logan knows this, too. Zhou Guanyu had been an easy pick for Cadillac, even before Jenson was brought on as Team Principal. Something something about race experience.
He doesn’t know where this is going though.
“Basically, Logan. How would you like to drive for Cadillac next year? Well, next two years actually but…”
The rest of his voice turns to buzzing. Not like bees but more of the thrum you feel just before an earthquake breaks loose, one that has been coming for a long time.
Logan thinks the Florida heat might have killed him. He peels himself slowly off the ground, hands darting out for purchase. His shirt pressed to his back, and Logan can feel it slowly begin to unstick, and the sweat starts to roll down his back.
“Logan? Hey buddy, are you still there?” Jenson’s voice comes from the floor.
“Y-yeah.” Logan's voice comes out hoarse. “Sorry, I’m just… Are you sure?”
“100% mate. We will draw up the contract soon, if you agree, of course, but we are offering you 2 years, secured, in a team, here. So? Are you in?”
Logan doesn’t know what to say. There’s no reason that this contract wouldn’t be the same as the one he signed in 2023, and once again in 2024. Except this time it's Jenson Button asking, and when Jenson Button asks?
You say “Yes.”
——
Tectonic plates also transform; they slide alongside each other in opposite directions until everything changes.
Imagine you live right on a fault line and woke up one day to find half your city on the other side of the world. Transformations aren’t supposed to be this volatile, you know this. Your life wasn’t supposed to be either.
You are on one side, and everyone you knew just so happened to be on the other. It’s okay though. You didn’t know those people, and they didn’t know you. Not for long really. You tell yourself it takes away the sting.
It doesn’t.
Imagine that just when you thought the plates had settled, they shift again.
Except this time, you are awake. You can see the plates start to move, where they grate against each other, and you want nothing more than to jump over the fault line into your new life. But you can’t. Your legs are frozen, so the only thing you can do is watch.
Watch as your hopes and dreams get further away.
Imagine you come back to everyone you know, or more so, everyone you should know. The plates have reverted to their start; you did too. It’s all familiar, but you can’t seem to fit in. The transformation eroded you too much; they all have a life here which you haven’t had, not for a long time.
You think it’s worse because they all are nice to you. Happy. Proud. As if you haven’t just fallen apart at the seams.
So you stitch yourself back up again and wait, and hope that if you stay long enough, the plates will take you back to where you want to go.
Imagine that day has finally come again.
Logan thinks it’s shorter this time, he ends up in Indiana.
He arrives late in the afternoon to the team’s headquarters. It’s freezing outside, the air of early January biting at his fingers. Logan thinks he might just miss the Florida heat. The building looms in front of him, surrounded by cornfields on either end. The sky reminds him of Zandvoort, gray and judgmental, as if it could just split in two and swallow him whole.
Instead, the front door opens.
“Logan!” Someone yells from inside. “Come in before it starts raining again.”
He tightens the straps of his backpack and walks in. The last time Logan found himself here was when he came to sign his contract. This time, he is here to race. He makes his way down the halls towards the sim room, but stops just short on account of voices coming from around the corner.
“…will be here soon, and then we can get you guys set up.”
Jenson.
“Alright!”
Jenson and Zhou. Logan hasn’t seen them properly, not since he was announced as the final member to complete the 2026 grid. They met briefly at a Cadillac media session following the announcement, but they haven’t since then. Logan steels himself once more before he turns the corner.
“Logan!” Jenson calls out, surprised but happy. “We were just talking about you, mate. Ready to hop into the sim?”
Logan nods, followed by a quick greeting to Zhou. He doesn't trust himself to speak just yet.
“Right,” A man standing next to Jenson begins to speak. “Today, and really most of the weeks following today, will just be in the simulator so you guys can relearn the car. But it’s also to get you guys more acquainted with the 2026 regulations. So suit up and just pop in when you are ready!”
The 2026 regulations made it so that every team had to make a car from scratch, creating a truly equal racing field for the first time in a long time. Cadillac technically had a full year while all the other teams were battling it out. Logan doesn’t know if that makes it better or worse for him.
Pushing through the locker room doors, he spots his racesuit folded on one of the benches, navy blue and gold. It feels like the polar opposite of Williams; he just hopes the car feels the same.
Cadillac’s simulator room features the two of them side-by-side, Zhou is already seated in his. Logan shuffles awkwardly into his own as the screens boot up. He feels his way up and around the steering wheel— not so dissimilar to his old car. The lights begin to flash on screen, the next thing he knows, he’s headed straight for turn one in Bahrain.
He had booted up his simulator at home the second day after Jenson’s call. Someone from Cadillac had called that morning to confirm he still had one and that they were going to be sending down a trainer sometime in the next few weeks. Logan had wanted to see if he could do a lap without spinning out. He shut down the sim 20 minutes later, once Alex’s Williams passed him.
The setup here is a little different, Logan notes. For starters, there isn’t an option to load other cars on track, most likely due to the uncertainty regarding how different teams interpreted the regulations. The other thing, he notes, is that he and Zhou have been loaded into the same session, their cars now side by side down the main straight.
“Alright, you guys got your laps in. Now we want to see how you do with another car on the track.” A voice buzzes through the intercom.
Logan bins it into the barriers.
So does Zhou. They both wince
“Right, sorry about that! I probably should’ve told you beforehand,” And to the voice’s defense, it does sound apologetic. Logan giggles under his breath as the sim reloads.
The two of them swap positions for the better half of three hours, and by the time they shut the sim down, Logan feels positive about the car. The projected setup feels good; he only crashed four times when he and Zhou started racing each other and managed to end the day ahead.
When Logan walks out of the locker room, Zhou is leaning up against the wall in front of him doing something on his phone. He pockets it as soon as he sees Logan, though Logan swears he sees a flash of annoyance at the person through the screen.
“Hey man!” Zhou greets, surprisingly happy even though Logan managed to gain the upper hand by the last half hour.
“Hey,” Logan says, a little awkward since he hasn’t interacted with anyone on the grid for the last year and a half. But Zhou wasn’t on the grid last year either, so maybe they have equal footing here. They turn down the hallway, making their way to the main entrance. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much, just wondering how it’s been going. What you’ve been up to over break, all that.”
Right, regular teammate bonding, Logan can do that.
“I’ve just been spending time in Florida, getting back into shape, you know how it is.”
“Yeah,” Zhou confirms. “Did you catch the last of the F1 season?”
“Uh, no, I think I was busy through the last few races. Why?” That’s a lie, he wrings out his wrists. Logan watched all the races to see the McLaren of Oscar Piastri take home the Championship, leagues away from anyone else.
If Zhou realizes he’s nice enough not to call him out on it, resorting to a quick “I see” before switching to talk about a shoot he did for GQ China and anecdotes about Sweetcorn as they push through the front doors and out into the night. Logan manages to laugh at the right times and hopes he at least asks the right questions.
They laugh around for a bit longer before Logan’s Uber arrives, and they part ways. As the car pulls away from the car park
Logan feels warm despite the AC. He turns to wave bye to Zhou but he’s already typing away at his phone with a frown. Logan will see him tomorrow, he spends the rest of the ride smiling softly to himself.
——
The plates shift again and this time, Logan is scared to move.
His time during the Spain Test deemed the car usable if not a bit unsteady, the mechanics working overtime since then. Jenson had told both him and Zhou that the data they collected would be implemented in time for Bahrain and sent them off with a pat on their back and a thumbs up.
Speaking of Zhou, the both of them had gotten closer during their shared time at the factory, and Logan was confident he could now say that he had a friend on the grid (alongside Alex, whose texts were a constant in Logan's life even before his departure from their team).
So as the two of them walked into the paddock together, Logan felt his nerves loosen up. Even with the Bahrain heat coating the ground.
The peace didn’t last for long however, as soon they rounded the corner to the hospitalities Zhou broke off from him with a smile, wave, and a quick “I’ll see you in the Garage” before heading off to the Ferrari hospitality. Just his luck.
As Cadillac would be joining the grid this year, they would then have to be at the far end of the Paddock. Logan braced himself for the long walk and hoped he wouldn’t run into anyone from the media.
With luck, and probably a couple of prayers, Logan managed to pass by the papaya colored garage without much hassle. He hadn’t talked to Oscar in years. Not since half a year in F1 had gone by, and one was clearly excelling and the other was not. It wasn’t Logan's fault. He had tried, he really did, to maintain some sense of normalcy with Oscar, but the replies kept getting slower and slower until there wasn’t much to talk about in the first place.
Turns out some people won’t respond if you don’t text first.
Before he knew it, he was out of a seat, out of a best friend, and out of a future. There was nothing in their chat after “I’m sorry. You deserve to be here,” once the news dropped. Logan never responded.
Sighing, he continues his way down the paddock, hoping to reach the end as fast as possible. Someone must be out to get him because not even a minute later, he walks into someone. Staggering backwards from the force of the hit, Logan turns to apologize, but he’s beaten to it by a soft: “Logan.”
It’s Oscar.
Because of course it’s Oscar. That someone out for him must want him dead, Logan thinks.
“Sorry about that, mate!” Logan says in response, not knowing how to answer. “I wasn’t looking. Sorry.”
Oscar doesn’t respond, too busy staring with an odd look on his face. Logan doesn’t know how to decipher it; he used to, not anymore.
If Oscar was going to say anything, Logan would never know now. Not when the loudest screech known to mankind just pierced his ears and a giant Thai man body slammed into him.
“Mate! Watch it!” Another voice yelled at them. George, probably, Logan was trying to catch his breath at the moment. “You’re going to break something.”
“No, I won’t!” Alex yells back. He’s still latched onto Logan. “I missed you so much, mate. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve gone through without you.”
Logan would actually, he got daily updates on the Thai’s life, as well as being the first person (apart from George, of course) to congratulate him on getting the Mercedes seat.
“Logan! Hey, how’ve you been?” George finally makes his way over, patting Logan on the back before moving to drag Alex off with a: “Let him breathe!”
“I’ve been well,” Logan answers, not unkindly, just reserved.
They talk around for a few minutes, stories of what has happened since last year, how annoying the new regulations are, etc. Logan finds himself enjoying the company of George and Alex; he forgot how much he missed it.
A Mercedes team member swings by to grab the two tall drivers with a quick warning to the other two to head to their respective garages soon. The two leave, and soon it’s Logan and Oscar again. Oscar still doesn’t speak. He just keeps looking at Logan.
“Um, right then.” Logan starts. “I’ll uh, see you around, dude.” He leaves without waiting for a response.
Walking through the rest of the paddock felt a bit easier if nothing else.
——
“Now over to you, Logan. You haven’t been on the grid for a while now. You seemingly quit racing for good. Do you think you are ready to perform this year?”
It’s media day in Australia, and Logan feels like he’s going to throw up. If he was in a Williams, they probably would’ve skipped right over him and sent the question to someone else. If he was returning to the grid from last year, they probably would’ve asked him his thoughts on the new cars.
But he’s not.
So they ask him about his past here in F1. They ask him if he will DNF half the races and finish p20 the rest.
Logan wants the ground to swallow him whole and take him back to Florida.
Logan wants to throw up.
“Well, the cars are certainly different this year, and I, uh, have trained during the offseason as well as raced around in the car. I’d say I’m pretty confident this year and the car feels really good,” He responds. It's true. Whatever was fixed for Bahrain really helped them unlock pace. “It’s just the start of the season, so we just want to see how the car is on track and see how we can improve from there.”
The journalist, seemingly happy with this answer, nods. They move to Carlos. They ask him about his thoughts on the new cars.
Logan wants to leave.
Australia has been nice so far. He remembers the last time he was here and shivers. Anything could be better than that. Sitting next to James as Alex drove Logan's car around the track had been humiliating; being told he wasn’t trusted to highlight the team's full potential was worse. Alex had apologized profusely, had said he would go tell James ’no’ personally. Logan refused.
By the time qualifying comes around, Logan is as ready as he thinks he ever will be. The car feels great. He was fine during free practice, there’s no reason he should be this worried.
He pulls out into the pit lane before Zhou and follows the rest of the cars on track.
The first couple of laps are easy, finding his pace, where he should press and release the clutch. His first recorded lap he bags a 1:32.359, pushing him to 12th right below Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin. He cheers internally on his outlaps, it’s too soon to celebrate.
On his second recorded lap, he starts off better than before. After gaining some slipstream for Bortoleto’s Audi, he careens his way down the back straight and through the next few turns. Just when Logan thinks he’s got it, he locks up straight into the gravel.
He thinks it means something.
“That lap is invalid, Logan. You are currently p14”. His race engineer says through the radio.
Logan apologizes before entering the track again, he doesn’t have enough time for another lap.
Two cars are still on their way. Logan heads for the pits.
The first one was already higher than Logan, so he doesn’t need to worry about that. The Williams of Bottas runs a 1:33.021.
Zhou is in p15.
Both Cadillacs are into Q2.
The next round goes pretty much the same as before, with both Cadillacs managing to just barely reach Q3. Logan has to knock down the Aston of Gasly to get through. Logan thinks he might scream.
Q3 starts and ends a blur. Logan pushes his car to the absolute limit. He nabs a couple of lines of slipstream to place his car p3.
He ends up p5, a 1:30.455.
Jenson screams through the radio.
Logan thinks that the drivers' parade has been, and always will be, the worst part of any weekend. He had Oscar at first. Then Alex, but there were only so many conversations he could have before he wouldn’t know what to say.
He had no one for a while.
He spots Oscar on the other end of the truck, staring straight at him. Logan has spotted him staring from across the paddock all weekend; it scares him a little. Logan turns away.
He has Zhou now. They stand in the corner of the truck, going over qualifying. Zhou had managed a p7, giving the team an amazing start to the new season. Now they just had to brave 58 laps.
Valtteri Bottas comes over halfway through the circuit. Logan smiles and nods while the two ex-teammates talk.
He tries not to stare into the sea of orange that sits on the other side of the fence, no doubt all wearing number 81. He saw no navy blue and gold. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the Williams merch.
Logan thinks he might just bend down and kiss the pavement when they finally get to disembark the truck.
The air inside the garage is tense when Logan and Zhou enter once again. They’ve been told there’s no need to overperform. That this is the “first race” of the season and “we are a new team,” all from Jenson. Multiple times.
One anthem and a formation lap later. Logan regrets saying ‘yes’ when he got the call.
The lights start their countdown, and by the end? There’s nothing to do except for Logan to slam the accelerator.
He makes up two places by the end of lap 1. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.
By lap 15, he pits for hards, the mediums having worn out.
Lap 27, the Mercedes of Albon locks up in front of him. Logan dives through the gap. He sits p2.
Lap 28-34, he spends trying to defend his position from Alex.
Lap 35, he gets notified through the radio that Zhou has caught up and will be attempting the overtake. Logan speeds off towards George.
Lap 36, they tell him Zhou is p3 now.
Lap 37, he comes in for a new set of hards.
On lap 43, he catches George. Zhou is right behind him. They overtake him in succession. Logan Sargeant is now the race leader.
Lap 44, they get orders that they are allowed to battle, but to keep it clean. They tear away from George.
By Lap 56, Logan has successfully lapped another car instead of being lapped. He and Zhou have traded positions back and forth for the better part of half an hour.
Lap 57 Zhou overtakes him once more. There aren't a lot of things Logan has wanted since he left Formula 1 in 2024. This is one thing he allows himself to want. He chases.
Lap 58. Logan overtakes Zhou on the back straight. He screams as he crosses the finish line. He thinks he might crash right into the barriers.
Logan takes p1. Zhou bags the fastest lap.
“And that’s p1 mate. Congrats Logan! You are a race winner!” His race engineer yells through the radio. Logan thinks he can hear Jenson crying from the other end..
“Thank you guys so much!” Logan yells back, followed by a little scream. Turns out he can’t drive a car very well when there are tears in his eyes.
He and Zhou take the last few corners together, waving both to Alex in p5 and George in p3. The pitlane tells him Oscar got p4 when he comes to park his car. Logan doesn’t know what to feel about that. He feels sad.
Any sadness is clearly forgotten when he jumps out of the car. He runs straight to Zhou, who knocks in on the back before enveloping him in a hug.
“We did it!” They both simultaneously yell.
George knocks their helmets before pulling them both into hugs.
Their next stop is the Cadillac team, which seemed to have run the entirety of the paddock for both their drivers. They are met with rounds of cheers and applause. Logan swears he sees someone crying, but that could also just be him.
Jenson takes them into the biggest hug and mumble yells something like “my boys,” but Logan can’t hear him over the ringing in his ears.
They queue for the interviews, and Logan's wrists are still shaking lightly when he accepts the mic.
“Logan! That was an amazing race.” Karun Chandhok says. “How does it feel? Your first win in Formula 1?”
Logan doesn’t know how to respond.
How does it feel?
Imagine you are standing at the boundary of two tectonic plates.
You’ve been here before. The last time you were here was forever ago, but you still remember it like it was yesterday.
You slipped right through the convergence and disappeared for a while.
Imagine you are standing at the boundary of two tectonic plates. The same tectonic plates. Converging.
But this time, instead of slipping under, you are pushed up.
You are pushed up and up past the clouds and so high that you think you might touch the stars.
Logan doesn’t know what he says. But Karun smiles warmly at him, so he must have said something right.
“And for your team? Do you think today will set the tone for the rest of the season?”
“Yeah, obviously, today was an excellent result for the team. I know both me and Guanyu will be pushing harder in future races as well. As for the tone, I’d like to say yes, but really anything can happen. Yeah.” Logan ends it with a little awkward laugh and is lucky enough to then get ushered to the cooldown room.
It’s cold and kind of dark compared to any other room Logan feels he’s been in. Zhou and George are already talking about the race. He finds it easy to join in.
Marching out to the podium seems surreal.
Accepting his trophy is pure adrenaline.
There’s an ocean of pure papaya below him, and he thinks that if he pretends long enough, all of the ’81's might just mesh together to make the real one.
He stops thinking after that.
The American anthem plays, and Logan is the most patriotic person in the world. He fears his smile might become permanently stuck on his face. The same goes for the tears.
Champagne has never tasted so sweet to him before. Even as he gets actively drowned in it.
He thinks that if he dies right now, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go. Formula 1 race winner Logan Sargeant has a nice ring to it.
And if he hugs his trophy extra tight in the end.
No one has to know except him.