"Esteban Ocon takes the last checkered flag of the twenty twenty-four season!" said the announcer.
"And Gasly just behind, an Alpine one-two here at Yas Marina Circuit for the season finale, and Alpine taking the season championship. No one and nopony expected this at the beginning of the season, what a battle!"
"Alpine's gutsy decision to bring in a new team principal from Equestria has clearly paid off. I apologize for my skepticism over the winter break. An amazing result for the French team."
"Verstappen in the Red Bull takes third. Scootaloo completes her first season with McLaren in fourth. Wind Sprint takes fifth in her McLaren."
"Third in the championship standings, McLaren did well with the first all-pony lineup and the first all-female lineup in Formula One history."
"Rumble in the other Red Bull crosses the finish, cementing second in the championship for the team from Milton Keynes. Let's go to Nico in the pit lane with the interviews."
Reporters surged into the pit lane as the last car parked and powered down. A few hustled to McLaren or Red Bull, but most surged to Alpine. Two mechanics climbed onto their championship-winning car, waving a huge French flag. Bottles of authentic French champagne popped.
Italian flags furled sullenly and Ferrari's team slinked into their garage, muttering "Next year will be our year..." for the sixteenth year in a row.
Alpine's two French drivers, Pierre and Esteban, shook hands and backslapped, then jumped into the crowd of their team, hugging and cheering with the swelling shock and joy of their team's first ever world championship.
The cheers grew louder as the mass of humans—along with a pair of minotaurs and a diamond dog in pit-crew jumpsuits—spread apart, making a corridor for a small figure to emerge. Extremely tall and slim for a pony, she still only stood about belt-high to the humans.
Camera flashes fired, leaving globes of light in the Abu Dhabi night as Fleur-de-Lis, Team Principal of Alpine-Renault Formula One, fluffed her mane and batted her eyes at the photographers and broadcast cameras.
"Mon Celeste et ma Lune," she said. "I am so 'appy! We make the championship, oui? The team, she is so merveilleuse!"
The team cheered. Crowds of fans waving French flags pressed in from all sides.
Two technicians set up a folding platform and Fleur stepped elegantly up, one long, svelte leg at a time, taking her time for the photographers to get every millimeter of her sensuous motion, and then she pranced in a circle, fluffing her mane, shaking her tail and batting her eyelashes at all.
Nico Rosberg, former Formula One world champion and current Formula One broadcaster and commentator, led the interviews. "Miss Fleur," Nico said, "Alpine jumped from sixth in the standings last year to world champions this year, all under your leadership. What's your secret?"
"Oh, my Nico, is no secrète, oui?" Fleur batted her eyelashes and brushed a forehoof gently against Nico's extended forearm, holding the microphone. "We have the merveilleux two French drivers and the merveilleuse French team and we make the merveilleuse French car. The French car, she drives very fast, non?"
"That's not an answer," shouted one of the other reporters. "You're being evasive."
Fleur smiled at him and let her mane fall over her eyes before swiping her mane back and winking at him. "Our secret, she is not so secret, n'est-ce pas? When we prepare the race, I say to my Esteban and my Pierre and I kiss their cheek and I say, 'You will drive the car fast for me, oui? If you do not drive the car fastest, I shall cry!'"
The reporters stared at her. Esteban and Pierre disappeared into their garages.
Fleur shook her slim rump and swished her coiffed tail dramatically. "And I go to the pit crew and I take each of their hand and I kiss their hand and I say, 'You will change the tires fast for me, oui? If you do not change the tires fastest, I shall cry!'"
The diamond dog pit crew member nuzzled the back of his own right paw, smiling wistfully.
"I'm detecting a theme," Nico replied, his fingers turning white where he clenched the microphone.
Fleur pranced in a circle, shaking her head and tossing her long pink mane back and forth. "Then, I say to the strategy engineers, I kiss their cheeks and I say, 'You will make the pitstops on the proper lap, oui? You pick the mathematically ideal pit strategy, or I shall cry!' And they all then do it! The whole team all knows I shall be ever so disappointed if we are not the fastest, non? They do not want to make me cry, so now—now we are champions because of teamwork!"
"So," Nico said with a frown, "your secret to taking over a failing Formula One team and turning it into the World Constructors Champion and one-two in the World Drivers Championship is to threaten to cry?"
Fleur drew up to her full height and glared. "Threat? I do not make threat! Moi, threaten? I just tell them Celestia's honest truth!"
Scootaloo, in her papaya-orange McLaren racing suit, sauntered up to the bottom of the platform Fleur was standing on. "Liar."
Fleur glared at her. "Ah, mon Scootaloo. Still bitter that I canceled your contract, oui?"
"Nah, I understand Renault corporate insisted you have two French drivers and you had no choice but to can me. That's just Formula One for you, we're cool about that."
"Then why do you interrupt Nico's interview?" Fleur demanded.
"What I'm mad about is that nocreature is seeing through your act."
"Act?!" said Nico and Fleur simultaneously.
"Act," Scootaloo repeated. "She barely even speaks French and the accent is fake, it's just part of Alpine's brand. And she tells the story about threatening to cry to throw the other teams off the scent of the real reason they won the championship."
"You silly little filly," Fleur said through gritted teeth, forcing a smile and thickening her accent. "I do not make act, and is no scent to track! Unless the scent is Chanel Perfume, who is our valued livery sponsor!"
"Act," Scootaloo said. "I talked to some friends back in Equestria. Fleur here has bachelor's and master's degrees in math, and took six years of cloud-walking potions to get a Ph.D. in magico-computational fluid dynamics from Cloudsdale University, and her eyelash batting and butt shaking is to distract you all from the fact she personally designed the most efficient aerodynamics in the history of Formula One."
"You listen here, you little shit—" Fleur snarled, pointing a forehoof at Scootaloo, then she blushed and batted her eyelashes at the cameras. "Merde."
Author's Note
Yes, I know Laurent Rossi is in the cover picture.
