The Spaces Between

Montreal, June 2024

The alarm hasn’t sounded yet, but Alexander Macalister is already awake.

In the pre-dawn darkness of his Montreal hotel suite, his eyes open at precisely 5:17 AM. The same time they do in Maranello, in Monaco, in Melbourne. The location changes, but the rhythm remains.

He lies motionless for exactly sixty seconds, allowing his consciousness to settle fully into the day. Championship standings, qualification strategies, the pressure of expectations: all await in their designated mental compartments, to be accessed at the appropriate moment. Not now. Now is for the ritual.

Alexander moves through the suite with practiced efficiency, his bare feet silent on the plush carpet. At the window, he takes in the silhouette of Mont-Royal against the indigo sky. Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Race nine of twenty-three. A pivotal moment in the championship fight.

These thoughts too are acknowledged, then carefully filed away.

First, water. A full glass, room temperature, consumed slowly. Then stretching. Twelve precise movements in unchanging sequence, a routine his father taught him at eight years old. Through karting victories, Ferrari Academy selection, his championship defeat, and ultimate triumph, these twelve movements have remained identical. The most consistent part of a life defined by constant motion.

His phone illuminates with a text from Adamo: Buongiorno campione. Tutto bene?

Alexander sends back a thumbs-up emoji. No words needed after six years together. Their communication has evolved into something beyond language. It is a shorthand as precisely calibrated as the car he drives.

He knows Adamo will arrive in exactly forty-three minutes with his carefully prepared breakfast. No hotel room service (too unpredictable in nutritional content). Since Alexander’s minor food poisoning during his F3 campaign years ago, Adamo has taken personal responsibility for his nutrition, traveling with a portable blender, digital scale, and vacuum-sealed ingredients across continents.

“In Adamo’s mind, Alexander’s body is just another Ferrari component requiring precise maintenance,” Ricci had once joked.

It wasn’t wrong.

Alexander dresses in lightweight training gear, the fabric specially selected to maintain optimal body temperature in varied climates. He opens his laptop and queues up the footage Ricci compiled of last year’s Canadian race (with technical annotations). The room service coffee will arrive at 5:30 AM. It is the one concession to hotel assistance, and only because Adamo personally vetted this establishment’s beans after extensive research.

At his desk, Alexander opens his journal. Ferrari red leather, identical to the twenty-six that came before it. Inside, his meticulous handwriting documents every race weekend since his F4 days. Not just lap times and setup notes (though these are meticulously recorded) but personal observations. Sleep quality. Mental clarity. External distractions. Emotional state.

Last night’s entry is characteristically brief: Arrived Montreal 7:15 PM local. Dinner with Lewis. Productive discussion about final chicane approach. Sleep by 10:30. Six-hour time difference from Italy manageable. Ready.

Today’s page awaits.

He flips backward through the journal, checking his notes from Monaco two weeks earlier, then forward to the blank pages that will soon hold Silverstone, Spielberg, Budapest. The physical act of writing grounds him in each location, creating continuity across continents. Twenty-seven journals, spanning his entire career. A paper trail of excellence pursued through disappointment, tragedy, and eventually, triumph.

A knock at the door at precisely 5:30 AM. The coffee arrives.

Alexander thanks the staff member with quiet courtesy, then returns to his desk, sipping the espresso as he queues up the first video file. This is the period Ricci calls la contemplazione, the contemplation. Sacred time before engineers, media, and tifosi make their demands.

His phone vibrates again. Amy: Morning, baby. Press schedule adjusted. First appearance now at 2, not 3. Sorry x

He sends a brief acknowledgment. Unlike most in his orbit, Amy never receives terse responses. Their communication has evolved over a decade into something beyond professional courtesy, a shorthand born of shared triumph and devastation.

The dynamic had confused Gemma initially. “Is she your manager or your sister?” she’d asked early in their relationship. A fair question with no simple answer.

Gemma. The thought brings a small smile. But such thoughts belong to another mental compartment. Not for race weekends.

Alexander refocuses on the screen, studying the data overlays from last year’s qualifying lap. The approach to the final chicane could be improved: a minor adjustment in brake pressure here, a fractionally earlier turn-in there. Milliseconds waiting to be found.

At 6:00 AM precisely, another knock. Adamo enters with his nutritionist’s toolkit.

“Buongiorno,” Adamo says, surveying Alexander with a professional eye that misses nothing. “Sleep?”

“Seven hours. Decent quality.”

Adamo nods, unpacking his supplies with the precision of a surgeon. “Heart rate variability readings?”

Alexander retrieves his phone, shows the app displaying his recovery metrics. The numbers tell a story that words cannot, revealing the precise state of his central nervous system, the readiness of his body to perform.

“Bene,” Adamo says, but his expression suggests it could be better. “We adjust for time zone today. Six-hour difference needs extra focus on recovery metrics.”

This is their pattern, scientific and methodical, spoken in half-sentences that require no elaboration after years of collaboration. As Adamo prepares breakfast (a precise combination that will fuel Alexander’s mind and body through the demanding day ahead), Alexander continues his data analysis. The two work in comfortable silence, a synchronised dance of preparation that will repeat in hotel rooms across five continents.

Alexander’s phone vibrates again. WhatsApp notification from the Ferrari drivers and race engineers’ group chat. Charles is sharing memes about Fred’s enthusiasm for their new front wing. Alexander allows himself a brief smile before returning to work.

Public and private identities. The whiplash between isolation and scrutiny. All managed through structure, through routine.

At 7:00 AM, Alexander will join Adamo for a light workout tailored to activate rather than fatigue. By 8:30 AM, they’ll be heading to the circuit. At 9:15 AM, the first engineering briefing. By 10:00 AM, Alexander will be fully immersed in Ferrari red, the British man who speaks Italian to his engineers, who carries the expectations of the tifosi into every race, who has built a family among the Maranello faithful.

But now, in this pre-dawn sanctuary, he is simply Alexander. Methodically laying the groundwork for excellence, one precisely measured step at a time.

His attention returns to the video, to the data, to the pursuit that defines him. Today’s journal page remains blank for now, but by nightfall, it will contain the first chapter of another Canadian Grand Prix weekend. Another link in the chain of preparation, performance, and reflection that structures his existence.

And tomorrow, at 5:17 AM, he will wake before his alarm and begin again.

---

Maranello, May 2024

The Ferrari factory in Maranello isn’t merely a manufacturing facility; it’s the beating heart of motorsport’s most storied legacy. On race weeks, it pulses with frenetic energy: engineers hunched over screens, mechanics performing their precisely choreographed dance supporting their scudaria compatriots thousand of miles away, executives pacing anxiously between meetings. But on this ordinary Tuesday, three weeks before Saudi Arabia, the rhythm is different. More measured. More revealing.

Alexander Macalister’s 1998 Ferrari 550 GT, in breathtaking and yet subtle, Blu Swaters, rolls into the employee car park shortly after sunrise. The grand tourer (his daily driver rather than the more temperamental F40 also in his collection) cuts an elegant figure among the modern Ferraris, Alfa Romeos and Fiats belonging to factory staff. He parks not in any reserved space but between a mechanic’s Fiat Panda and an aerodynamicist’s Stelvio.

Dressed in simple jeans and a dark grey jumper with only a small, discreet prancing horse near the collar, he could almost be mistaken for any other factory employee. Almost.

He nods to the security guard in Italian. “Buongiorno, Paolo. Come sta la tua bambina?”

Paolo’s face lights up as he updates Alexander on his daughter’s recovery from tonsil surgery. It is a minor detail many might never retain, much less inquire about. It’s a brief exchange, but telling. In this place, Alexander exists not as a carefully constructed media persona but as something more authentic: a man among his chosen family.

“This is the real work,” he explains as we walk toward the simulator facility. “The races are the final exam, but this is where you actually learn.”

The engineering briefing begins promptly at 8:00 AM. What follows is a transformation so subtle yet profound that it initially escapes notice. The composed, measured presence familiar from press conferences gives way to someone altogether more animated, more precise in his questioning. This Alexander leans forward intently, his hands sketching corner approaches in the air, his voice taking on a different cadence altogether.

There’s an intensity to his technical interrogation that would surprise those who know him only through media appearances. Gone are the diplomatic responses and carefully considered pauses. Here, with his engineers, Alexander is direct to the point of bluntness, but never without purpose. He cycles between English and Italian effortlessly, technical terms flowing regardless of which language he’s using.

“Non sono d’accordo,” he counters when a proposed setup change is presented. “La macchina sarebbe troppo nervosa nell’ingresso della curva.” He immediately switches to English to elaborate on why the car would be too nervous on corner entry, drawing a junior engineer into the discussion with an encouraging nod.

When the young man offers a hesitant counterpoint, Alexander’s response reveals something essential about his character. Rather than dismissing the alternative perspective, he leans in with genuine curiosity. “Show me what you’re seeing,” he says. “I might be missing something.”

It’s a glimpse of the leadership style that has earned him such loyalty within Ferrari, a willingness to consider that even a junior engineer might see something the future world champion has missed. No ego, only the pursuit of speed.

By mid-morning, the simulator session begins. From behind glass, team members watch as Alexander disappears into a world of pure concentration, lap after metronomic lap around the digitally rendered Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

“He’ll be like this for hours,” Adami explains. “His ability to maintain focus is extraordinary, even by F1 standards. Most drivers need breaks every twenty minutes or so. Alexander can go for ninety minutes without any drop in precision.”

The data screens confirm this assessment. His lap times vary by mere hundredths across multiple stints, each corner entry and exit replicated with uncanny consistency. This isn’t mere talent. It’s the result of the mental discipline that has defined him since boyhood, since those early days when his father first taught him the value of methodical preparation.

At 12:30, he emerges from the simulator room, blinking slightly as he readjusts to the real world. Unlike many drivers who emerge from sim sessions irritable or drained, Alexander appears energised.

“Found something interesting in turn six,” he tells the waiting engineering team, immediately launching into a technical explanation that draws them into a huddle around monitors. There’s a genuine exchange of ideas, with Alexander listening as intently as he speaks.

Lunch is taken in the small engineering dining room rather than the more formal Ferrari restaurant. Alexander sits with the mechanics rather than at the “management table,” asking about their families, sharing jokes in Italian. When a young Ferrari Academy driver nervously approaches, Alexander’s demeanour shifts again, the intensity giving way to patience.

“Hai problemi con Curva 3?” Alexander asks, immediately identifying the young driver’s struggles with the challenging third corner of Imola, the circuit where the Academy drivers are currently testing.

The teenager nods, surprise evident in his expression that the World Champion would not only recognise him but pinpoint his specific challenge.

Alexander takes a napkin and sketches a racing line, explaining a technique his father had taught him in karting nearly two decades earlier. “Try this approach,” he says, “but don’t force it. The feeling will come with repetition.”

“My father would have done the same,” he mentions afterward, the reference to his personal loss delivered matter-of-factly. “Knowledge only matters when it’s shared.”

It’s a fleeting glimpse of the connection to his father that remains central to his identity. The inheritance of wisdom that he now passes on, completing a circle begun in childhood.

The afternoon unfolds with similarly revealing moments: a meeting with Ferrari’s aerodynamic team where Alexander’s astonishingly detailed feedback draws silent nods of respect; a physical training session with Adamo where their synchronised movements suggest years of coordination; a spontaneous Italian conversation with the factory cleaning staff who treat him not as a superstar but as a respected colleague.

At 6:15 PM, long after most drivers would have departed, Alexander finally prepares to leave. In the car park, Amy Millie waits, having arrived separately for meetings of her own. Their interaction is fascinating, a seamless blend of professional debriefing and personal shorthand. She provides updates on commercial matters while simultaneously handing him a paper bag containing what appears to be his favourite sandwich from a local caffe.

“Good day?” she asks, a question that clearly encompasses more than just productivity.

“Productive,” he responds. “Turn six breakthrough. And that junior academy kid has potential.”

She nods, absorbing not just his words but the energy behind them. “Dinner and debrief at yours then? I’ve got those contract revisions to discuss.”

There’s a comfortable rhythm to their exchange, the synchronicity of two people who have navigated triumph and devastation together over the course of a decade. As they prepare to leave in separate cars, Alexander pauses, looking back at the factory illuminated against the darkening Italian sky.

For a moment, something unguarded crosses his expression. Perhaps pride, perhaps gratitude, perhaps the weight of carrying a legacy far greater than his own achievements. Then, with the same methodical purpose that defines everything he does, he slides into the Ferrari 550, bringing another ordinary Tuesday to a close.

But it’s these ordinary days, these quiet hours of relentless refinement far from the cameras and commentary, that reveal the truth about Alexander Macalister. In the spaces between race weekends, in the sanctuary of Maranello, Alexander isn’t performing excellence. He’s simply living it.

---

Qatar, 2024

The paddock at Lusail buzzes with pre-race intensity, a choreographed chaos of last-minute preparations. Engineers huddle over data screens. Mechanics make final adjustments. PR handlers shepherd drivers through media commitments with military precision. All except for Alexander Macalister.

“Where’s Alexander?” asks an anxious Ferrari PR coordinator, clipboard clutched to her chest as she scans the garage.

Ricci doesn’t look up from his monitor. “È il suo momento.”

It’s his time.

Exactly one hour before every race, Alexander vanishes. Ten minutes, never more, never less. It’s become such an established part of his routine that the team works around it without question. Rookie staff members learn quickly: those ten minutes are sacrosanct.

The first time Claudia, newly hired as his personal assistant, tried to interrupt this ritual with an urgent sponsor request, Amy had gently but firmly steered her away from the private room where Alexander had sequestered himself.

“Not now,” Amy had whispered. “Not during these ten minutes.”

“But the sponsor…”

“Could be the Pope himself and the answer would be the same,” Amy had replied with a finality that ended the discussion.

Now, with the Qatar Grand Prix less than an hour away, a race that could seal his world championship, Alexander has once again disappeared from the frenzy of the paddock.

Behind a nondescript door marked only with a small Ferrari logo, he sits alone in a room normally used for driver briefings. No music, no phone, no distractions.

Before every championship-defining moment, every crushing defeat, every breakthrough victory, these ten minutes ground him in something more fundamental than racing. This sanctified pocket of silence reminds him that before he was Scuderia Ferrari’s Alexander, he was simply Alex. A shy boy from Hertfordshire who loved racing cars.

At Monza earlier this season, a junior Ferrari press officer had finally worked up the courage to ask Amy about these mysterious minutes.

“What’s he actually doing in there?” the young woman had whispered.

Amy had considered the question carefully before answering. “Finding his centre,” she’d finally said.

Exactly ten minutes after vanishing, Alexander reappears in the garage as if he’d never left. His expression is serene, focused, present. A subtle transformation has occurred, a shift in energy that his engineer immediately recognises.

“Pronto?” Ricci asks, their pre-race ritual.

“Pronto,” Alexander confirms, pulling on his gloves with methodical precision.

To the untrained eye, he appears identical to the man who disappeared ten minutes earlier. But those who know him best see the difference: a sharpening of focus, a certainty of purpose that wasn’t there before. As if in those private moments, Alexander connected to something essential about himself.

He steps into the car, immediately at home in the tight confines of the cockpit. Whatever vulnerability was present in that private room is now sealed away, replaced by the composed competitor the world recognises. But the connection established in those ten minutes remains, an invisible thread linking the public racing driver to the private person, the expectant champion to the boy who lost everything, the man to the memory of those who helped shape him.

As the garage erupts into pre-race activity, as engineers deliver final instructions and mechanics complete their checks, Alexander is already elsewhere, occupying that perfect mental space where past is neatly categorised and put away, making space now for the present, for the calculations, for the focus, for the racer.

---

Formigine, Italy, 2024

The sleek face of the wall-mounted Braun clock shows nearly midnight when the front door finally opens. The converted barn, situated in the rolling hills outside Maranello, presents a perfect paradox: centuries-old stone walls concealing a meticulously modern interior, much like its owner’s carefully constructed public persona hiding deeper complexities. It is the one place that approximates home in a life spent in perpetual motion.

He moves through the darkened rooms with the familiarity of muscle memory, not bothering with lights. The factory debrief had run long, dissecting every aspect of that weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix performance. Second place behind Leclerc, not the victory he’d hoped for, but solid championship points nonetheless.

Enzo, his Border Collie, pads silently beside him, having been fed earlier by his housekeeper, Kasia, and also his grandmotherly neighbour, Maria. The dog nudges Alexander’s hand, sensing as animals do when their humans need comfort rather than solitude.

“Buona notte, Enzo,” Alexander murmurs, scratching behind the dog’s ears before sending him to his bed with a gentle command.

Instead of heading upstairs to his bedroom, Alexander drifts toward a room at the rear of the villa, a space visible in no social media posts, no magazine features on the champion’s home. The window here faces east toward the distant lights of Maranello, heavy curtains now drawn against the night.

He sits at the piano, a simple upright that occupies the centre of the otherwise sparsely furnished room off the side of the main living area. Not the showpiece instrument that might be expected in a racing driver’s home, designed to impress guests with its mere presence. This is a musician’s piano, positioned for acoustics rather than aesthetics, its surface free of photographs or decorative objects that might interfere with its resonance.

His fingers hover over the keys momentarily before beginning. No sheet music, no preparation. The Debussy flows from memory, “Clair de Lune” filling the room with its gentle melancholy. His mother had taught him this piece, guiding his small hands over the keys with patient persistence.

Elizabeth Macalister had been an accomplished pianist herself. Not professionally, but with the dedicated passion of someone who understood music’s transcendent qualities. “Music is mathematics that makes you feel,” she’d explained to her curious son. “Just like racing is physics that makes you feel.”

Alexander plays with technical precision, but it’s the emotion behind the notes that would surprise those who know him only from the paddock. Here, alone in his sanctuary, the carefully maintained composure yields to something more vulnerable, more raw. The music speaks what he rarely articulates: grief, joy, longing, all intertwined in Debussy’s evocative phrases.

Amy tells me of a time in 2021 when Amy had heard him play, walking unexpectedly into his home during his rookie season, she’d stopped dead in her tracks, transfixed by the disconnect between the methodical driver and this expressive musician.

“Don’t stop,” she’d whispered when he’d abruptly lifted his hands from the keys, caught in this private moment. “Please.”

But he’d already closed the fallboard with quiet finality, offering her that particular smile, warm but immovable, that she’d come to recognise as his gentle way of maintaining boundaries. “It’s just something I do,” he’d said simply, rising from the bench. “Like other people might do crosswords or read before bed. Nothing worth listening to, really.” She’d known better than to push. Even early in their relationship, she’d understood that Alexander’s few private spaces were sacrosanct. Not from lack of trust, but from necessity. In a life where so much was shared, analysed, and optimised for public consumption, these small reserves of self were what kept him whole.

Years later, when Amy recounted this moment to me, she’d described the strange sensation of finding herself suddenly on the outside of something when she’d grown accustomed to being Alexander’s exception to every rule. In their world of ‘us versus them,’ this was one of the rare moments where she found herself gently but unmistakably placed with ‘them’. A boundary that spoke volumes about the careful architecture of even their relationship.

Now, as “Clair de Lune” transitions into Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat major, Alexander allows himself to remember. His mother’s smile as he mastered a difficult passage. His father’s bemused appreciation for a talent he didn’t share but respected deeply. The way they’d sit together in the evenings, his mother playing while his father discussed racing theory, the two passions of his childhood intertwining in perfect harmony.

He plays for nearly an hour, the repertoire shifting from classical pieces to improvised explorations that follow no score. The music serves as both remembrance and release, a tribute to what was lost and an expression of what cannot be articulated in the precise, technical language of his professional life.

Finally, as the clock approaches 1 AM, he closes the piano lid with gentle care. The silence that follows feels fuller somehow, as if the music continues to resonate in the space between notes.

His phone chimes softly with a text from Amy.

Mission accomplished. Revisions accepted. Get some sleep, baby x

Alexander smiles at the timestamp. Amy, too, works these late hours, managing the business empire that has built around his racing success. Another soul for whom “normal hours” is a foreign concept.

“You too”, he replies simply.

Tomorrow will bring simulator work, physical training with Adamo, sponsor obligations arranged by Claudia, strategic discussions with Ricci. The machinery of his racing life will once again engage fully, leaving no room for midnight sonatas or quiet remembrance.

But for now, in this brief interlude between races, Alexander allows himself to be simply Alex again. The boy who played piano with his mother, who dreamed of racing with his father, who still carries these childhood memories in everything he does.

In the spaces between his public accomplishments, in the quiet moments when no one is watching, Alexander Macalister isn’t just the focused, unflappable driver who rarely shows emotion.

He’s a son who never stopped loving the parents he lost too soon. A musician who plays not for applause but for connection. A man whose carefully constructed public image protects the very real, very human heart that beats beneath.

The very heart that, despite everything, still feels every note.