Pole Position: Between Logic and Passion

One month later

“Amy, you withheld information from us.”

I kept my back straight, fingers laced tightly in my lap, trying not to let them see the way my heart was pounding.

“I didn’t withhold anything,” I replied, voice calm despite the tension in the room. “It was a personal experiment. One I never submitted because it wasn’t developed using McLaren data or tech.”

The technical director leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “So you just happened to create a full aero-balance redesign for a 2024-spec chassis, on your own time, with no intention of bringing it to us?”

“I didn’t even know it worked until I saw the data from—”
I stopped myself. My jaw locked.

From Charles' car. That was what I wasn’t supposed to say.

Another director cut in, tone clipped. “You had something potentially game-changing in your hands, and instead of bringing it to your team, you ran off and gave it to Ferrari.”

“I didn’t give anything to anyone,” I snapped before I could stop myself. “I didn’t even use your wind tunnel. It was a theoretical model I built from scratch. No McLaren resources, no McLaren time. It wasn’t even developed on our simulator.”

“And yet Ferrari tested it,” he said coldly.

No one said Charles. But we all knew.

I inhaled slowly. “Just Once. Out of curiosity.”

Another voice, more irritated than the others: “You work for McLaren, Amy. Not for curiosity. Not for Charles Leclerc.”

“Hand it over,” the technical director said, voice sharp like a blade.

My fingers stiffened around the pen I wasn’t even using. “Excuse me?”

“The project,” he repeated, slower this time, like I hadn’t heard him right the first time. “The setup you tested. The full model. All the data. Every note, every version, every file. We want all of it.”

I looked around the room. Three directors and one legal advisor, all of them staring at me from across the long glass table. Faces unreadable. Expressions flat. But there was a pressure in the air, thick and suffocating.

“I already told you,” I began, voice steady even though my stomach was tightening, “I created that setup on my own time. I didn’t use any McLaren tools, any tech, or any data from inside this team. It was purely conceptual—”

“But it worked,” one of them interrupted. “You tested it. On a Ferrari.”

My jaw clenched. “It wasn’t an official test. It wasn’t part of any development program."

"Yet the model can optimized the suspension load balance and reduce tire degradation by 23%"

“That wasn’t the plan,” I snapped, finally losing the calm I’d been clinging to. “It wasn’t meant to go that far. I shared it because I was curious. Because I wanted to see if it could work.”

“Well, it does,” the legal advisor said flatly. “And now it’s a matter of intellectual property.”

My heart started to race. “No,” I said, firmly this time. “This isn’t your IP. I designed it from scratch. I used no proprietary information. You want to call your lawyers? Fine. But I’ve documented every step. Every sketch, every test, every line of code. On my personal account. With timestamps. You can’t claim this.”

“Technically, anything developed while you’re under contract with McLaren—” the legal rep started, but the director raised a hand.

“This isn’t about a legal war,” he said. “It’s about the future of this team. We are not letting Ferrari, of all people, take something developed by a McLaren engineer."