Forty-eight hours later, a full day early, Nikita was driving in the simulator. She let out a yelp of frustration. She'd under-braked yet again, tires screeching as she came to an abrupt stop in the short run-off at turn five. The prior lap she'd braked too early, losing momentum that cost at least half a second trudging up the immediate hill that follows the turn.

She'd never been interested in sim racing, preferring to practice on the track. Nikita had tried her brother's sim at home a few times, but it just didn't feel real enough for her. While Roger had raced on all the different tracks around the world, she'd spent hours and hours trying different racing lines and apexes on the kart track near their house. She enjoyed the feeling of rubber breaking loose and then regripping the tarmac that you can only experience in the real world.

Now, of course, she kicked herself. Until today she'd never driven the Monaco course and it was demanding. More so than she could have imagined. Thirty-five laps in and she was still four seconds off last year's race-pace time, let alone qualifying times. She'd never driven such a demanding track. With so many turns on the narrow track it was nearly impossible to build any momentum. She reversed back onto the track and with frustrated determination headed up the hill preparing to face the challenge of the tightest corner in all of F1 racing, turn six.

Her car had bounced off the wall coming out of the turn at least a dozen times, though not in the past fifteen laps or so. 'Lucky this is just a sim,' Nikita had told herself many times in the past hour and a quarter. She'd learned to take her left hand off the wheel completely, keeping it out of the way as she spun the wheel all the way left until she cleared the wall.

This was her smoothest attempt yet. She gathered as much speed as she could through turns seven and eight then raced into the tunnel. Though difficult to see in the dimly lit tunnel, turn nine was easy once you knew where it was. She emerged into the light in eighth gear. The small chicane that was turns ten and eleven at the bottom of the hill came up quickly. Nikita had this tricky area figured out. The braking, shifting, turning and engine revs felt like parts of a melody to her. Ever since her early karting days Nikita found the track sounds to be musical. Sometimes she hummed along, other times she made up verses to help remind her when to brake or shift. So far, the song of Monaco was only playing from turns six through thirteen, the rest of the track was still off key. She needed the whole track to sing to her.

Suddenly the screen went black and the wheel went slack.

"That's enough for today," Lawrence Brockman's deep voice penetrated through her headphones from outside the sim. She turned her head to see her Race Engineer and her father standing next to the simulator.

"I need more laps," Nikita said, shaking her head.

"Tomorrow," her father stated with authority.

"I feel fine," she said, though her forearms were tightening up and her butt was numb. The simulator seat wasn't a perfect fit like her car.

"I'm taking you home," he said, extending his hand to help her out of the impressive rig.

"Don't forget," Lawrence said, as her father hoisted Nikita to her feet. "We have a meeting at 8 am with the suspension team."

"I'll be there." Nikita smiled. Suspension was one of her favorite topics and she already had a few suggestions in mind.

"This came for you today," her father said, handing her an envelope. There was a Williams Racing logo on the back flap.

Nikita opened it to find a note from Camryn Cardinal, the Williams Team reserve driver and only other woman to have driven in an F1 race. It read, 'Nikita, Welcome to Formula 1. Fabulous drive at Imola. It is great to see another woman in the show. We're practically neighbors. Let's get together soon. Cheers, Camryn'