The Composition

THE KITCHEN

April, 2025

Maria’s kitchen was a sanctuary of tradition. Copper pots hung from well-worn hooks, herbs dried in small bunches near the window, and the wooden pasta board had been in her family for generations. I sat in the corner, notebook open but largely forgotten, absorbed in the scene unfolding before me.

“Non così veloce,” Maria chided, her weathered hands gently slowing Alexander’s enthusiastic kneading. “Il impasto ha bisogno di rispetto, di pazienza.”

Alexander nodded, immediately adjusting his rhythm. “The dough needs patience,” he repeated in English, then switched seamlessly back to Italian. “Come questo?”

“Meglio,” she approved, watching his technique with the critical eye of someone who had been making pasta for close to sixty years.

What struck me most as I observed them was the fluidity of Alexander’s movements between languages. Italian flowed naturally when discussing the dough’s consistency, while English phrases appeared when technical precision was required. His Italian carried the melodic cadence of the local dialect, yet certain words emerged with unmistakable British precision, creating a linguistic fingerprint as unique as the man himself.

I had heard about Alexander’s language journey from those who had witnessed its evolution. Roberto, his academy roommate, had described the early days with fond amusement: “He arrived speaking textbook Italian, all rigid grammar and no soul. Like someone who had learned to drive by reading the manual but never touching a car.”

Those first months at the Ferrari Academy had been a baptism by fire. Teenage Alexander, already isolated from family, found himself further separated by language. Roberto had shared how Alexander would sit with Italian grammar books late into the night, methodically conjugating verbs while other teenagers slept.

When Maria jokingly called him “troppo ingegnere” for his precise measurements, Alexander suddenly went still, his hands pausing mid-knead. His eyes took on a distant quality, as if seeing something far beyond the kitchen walls.

“Dove sei?” Maria asked, noticing his absence.

Still somewhat distant, Alexander replied softly, “Con una ragazza, da una vita fa.” Then, more present: “Non sei la prima a chiamarmi così. Anche lei mi diceva che dovevo sentirlo, non pensarlo. Ma parlava dell’italiano, dell’Italia, della vita. Non solo dell’impasto.”

Maria’s eyes crinkled with knowing amusement. “Ragazza intelligente. Ma parlava anche dell’impasto,” she replied, a mischievous smile playing across her face.

Their exchange carried the weight of memory. They had spoken about where he had gone in his thoughts, about some girl from long ago who had also told him to feel rather than think. Maria, with the wisdom of her years, recognised both the lesson and its teacher’s significance.

Alexander laughed and the moment passed as quickly as it had appeared. He returned to the pasta with renewed focus, the precision and feeling now perfectly balanced in his movements.

The conversation was casual, but in the context of Alexander’s carefully compartmentalised life, this small acknowledgment of a teenage romance that had shaped his Italian self felt significant. It was another wall coming down in the integration of the man behind the visor.

“La farina si mette così,” Maria demonstrated, creating a volcano of flour on the board. “Guarda le mie mani.”

Alexander studied her hands with the same intense focus he brought to telemetry data, absorbing every nuance of movement and pressure. This was not the compartmentalised Alexander of his early career: English Alexander for technical precision, Italian Alexander for emotional expression. This was linguistic integration in its purest form.

“Maria insists there’s a right way to feel the dough,” he explained to me in English, before turning back to her. “È vivo, vero? Il impasto è una cosa viva.”

“Esattamente!” she exclaimed, delighted by his understanding. “Come un motore che deve essere ascoltato.”

“Like an engine that must be listened to,” he translated for my benefit, though I had understood her comparison. It was a revealing moment, his technical world of engines merging with this ancient culinary art, both requiring the same intuitive sensitivity.

Amy had once described to me the linguistic divide she’d observed in Alexander’s early career: “English was his professional language: precise, controlled, emotionally neutral. Italian became his escape valve, where he could express feelings that English kept locked away. You could almost see him shift between them like changing gears.”

But here in Maria’s kitchen, the gears had meshed into a single, smooth operation. His face was animated as he spoke in Italian, but retained that analytical focus I associated with his English-speaking self. The compartments were dissolving.

“The first time I heard him curse in Italian, I knew he had crossed some threshold,” Ricci had told me during our interview at Monza. “Not the textbook swearing that foreigners learn for fun, but the creative, emotional kind that comes from living inside a language.”

Now as I watched Alexander expertly crack eggs into the flour well under Maria’s supervision, I recalled Ferrari’s press officer describing the moment she realised Alexander’s Italian had become something more than acquired fluency: “During a press conference in 2023, a journalist asked a complicated technical question. Alexander started answering in Italian, then switched to English for a specific technical term, then back to Italian without breaking stride. Not because he didn’t know the word, but because he was thinking in both languages simultaneously.”

“Madonna mia!” Maria exclaimed as flour dusted Alexander’s dark shirt. “Sei un disastro!”

“Un disastro con talento,” Alexander countered with a grin, the self-deprecating humour carrying the distinctly British ability to find comedy in his own failings, yet delivered with Italian expressiveness.

Maria swatted his arm affectionately. “Metti il grembiule, campione del mondo. Non sei tanto importante per essere troppo elegante in cucina.”

“She says I’m not too important to wear an apron,” Alexander translated for me, reaching for the faded floral apron hanging nearby. “Apparently being world champion doesn’t exempt me from proper kitchen protocol.”

What fascinated me was how this linguistic integration mirrored his broader psychological journey. In his early Ferrari days, according to those who knew him then, Alexander had kept his British identity carefully separate from his Italian self. It was a protective compartmentalisation that extended beyond language to encompass his entire approach to life.

As he began working the dough with newly confident movements, I asked about his early language struggles at the Academy.

“It was isolating,” he admitted, his hands continuing their rhythmic work. “I understood maybe one word in ten. Everyone spoke so fast, with dialects and idioms I’d never encountered in my textbooks. I’d go entire days without having a genuine conversation.”

“Non parlare, lavora,” Maria interrupted, tapping the pasta board. “La pasta sente se sei distratto.”

“The pasta knows if you’re distracted,” Alexander explained, returning his attention to the dough. “Maria believes pasta has feelings.”

“Non è uno scherzo,” Maria insisted, and Alexander nodded seriously.

“Of course it’s not a joke. My apologies to the pasta.”

The exchange highlighted another aspect of his evolution that Roberto, his former Academy roommate, had mentioned during our interview: “For those first two years, I tried everything to help him connect with our language. He learned the grammar perfectly, memorised vocabulary lists overnight, but it was all… mechanical. Like watching someone solve equations. Then he met Giulia Rizzo from the caffé, and something just clicked. Suddenly he was using expressions no textbook would teach, catching the rhythm of our idioms, laughing at jokes that usually only locals understand. What I couldn’t accomplish in two years, she managed in weeks.” Roberto had smiled knowingly before adding, “Of course, it helped that his fascination with Italian became inseparable from his fascination with her. Some things you can’t learn from roommates, no matter how patient.”

As if to illustrate this point, Alexander launched into a story about his first attempt at making pasta, describing his failures with self-effacing humour and elaborate hand gestures that would have been unthinkable from the reserved young driver I had first encountered years ago.

Maria interrupted occasionally to correct both his technique and his pronunciation, which Alexander accepted with good-natured humility. “Si dice ‘sfoglia,’ non ‘foglia,’” she corrected at one point.

“Sfoglia,” he repeated carefully. “Sheet of pasta, not leaf. Same word root though, isn’t it? Because it’s thin like a leaf?”

“Esatto! Sei intelligente quando vuoi!” Maria exclaimed.

“Only when I want to be,” Alexander replied with a grin.

As they worked together to roll the dough into a thin sheet, I recalled Adamo’s observation about Alexander’s linguistic evolution: “He used to translate in his head, and you could almost see him processing, converting thoughts from English to Italian. Now he thinks in either language depending on the context. In physical training, he’s mostly Italian, more expressive, more willing to push through discomfort. In technical briefings, his Italian becomes more precise, more English in its structure.”

The integration wasn’t just linguistic but cultural. Alexander moved around Maria’s kitchen with the ease of someone who belonged, understanding the unspoken rhythms and traditions. Yet when he spoke about his plans for the pasta (“Farò un ragù come mi hai insegnato”), I could hear both his Italian immersion and British precision in the careful pronunciation of certain sounds.

“How long did it take,” I asked, “before you stopped translating in your head?”

Alexander considered while cutting the pasta into precise strips. “There wasn’t a single moment,” he replied, effortlessly switching between English and Italian as he worked. “But I remember dreaming in Italian for the first time about a year after joining the Academy. Not the entire dream, just fragments. When I woke up, something had shifted.”

“Basta chiacchiere,” Maria declared, examining the pasta strips with critical eyes. “Non male per un inglese.”

“Not bad for an Englishman,” Alexander translated. “High praise indeed from Maria.”

As they finished preparing the pasta for Alexander’s dinner party later that week, I reflected on what I was witnessing. This wasn’t simply bilingualism but the physical manifestation of his internal integration. The British precision and Italian expressiveness were no longer operating as separate systems but as complementary aspects of a unified whole.

When we eventually departed Maria’s kitchen, pasta carefully wrapped and ragù instructions firmly established, Alexander switched back to English as we walked along the narrow street toward his home. Yet the animated hand gestures remained, and certain phrases emerged in Italian when English equivalents seemed inadequate.

“It’s strange,” he remarked as we reached his door. “I used to feel like I was playing a role when I spoke Italian. Performing a version of myself. Now it’s just… me. Different aspects of the same person.”

As he unlocked his door, I recalled Amy’s observation from our most recent conversation: “The most telling thing isn’t when he speaks Italian or English,” she had said. “It’s the spaces in between, when he moves so naturally between them that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. That’s when I know he’s truly at home in himself.”

Watching Alexander enter his house, speaking softly to Enzo, in Italian, of course, I understood what she meant. The linguistic bridge he had built wasn’t just between two languages or two cultures, but between the fragmented parts of himself. A passage toward wholeness that had been years in the making.

---

THE GARDEN

May 2024

The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across Alexander’s garden, painting the manicured lawn with stripes of gold and amber. It was one of those perfect Italian spring evenings where the air itself seemed to hold promise, warm enough to sit outdoors, yet cool enough to appreciate the gentle breeze carrying the scent of jasmine from the climbing vines along his stone wall.

Gemma stood barefoot on the grass, her blonde hair loose around her shoulders instead of twisted up in the loose, no-nonsense bun she wore by habit. Years of gym hours had made it second nature to keep it off her face. She walked slowly, deliberately, as though reacquainting herself with the sensation of uneven ground beneath her feet.

“Do you know,” she said, wiggling her toes into the grass, “I haven’t walked on actual grass without shoes in about three years? It’s always sprung floors, mats, or horrible hotel carpets.”

Alexander watched from the stone patio, wine glass balanced delicately between his fingers, content to observe rather than participate. He’d arranged the garden carefully when purchasing the property. The proportions were pleasing, the plantings thoughtfully selected, each element in its proper place. Like everything in his life, it was the product of deliberate choices rather than chance.

“The groundskeeper would approve of your appreciation,” he replied, taking a measured sip of his wine.

Gemma turned to face him, a mischievous smile playing at her lips. “I haven’t done this just for fun in years, either.”

Before Alexander could ask what “this” referred to, she’d launched into a cartwheel. Not the precisely executed movement that had earned her Olympic medals, but a joyful, almost childish version. Her technique remained impeccable from muscle memory, but there was a liberation in the way she moved without scoring in mind.

Enzo, Alexander’s Border Collie, barked excitedly and raced alongside her, attempting his own four-legged interpretation.

Alexander felt something catch in his chest as he watched them. There was something both beautiful and painful about witnessing such unplanned joy. His mind drifted back to his first experiences in a kart: the raw excitement of speed, the wind rushing past his helmet, the simple thrill of making the machine do what he wanted. The memory was so vivid he could almost smell the petrol and rubber.

When had that changed? He could pinpoint the moment with uncomfortable precision. Eight years old, watching race footage with his father, who had pulled out a notepad.

“Look here,” his father had said, rewinding the video. “If you take this line instead, see how much time you save? Racing isn’t just about going fast. It’s a puzzle to solve.”

From that day forward, Alexander had approached every lap as a problem to be deconstructed, analysed, perfected. The methodology had served him well, and his rising position in this year’s championship standings proved that. But watching Gemma now, he wondered what had been lost in the translation from joy to precision.

Gemma completed another cartwheel, laughing as Enzo attempted to mimic her movement by leaping sideways. She caught Alexander’s expression and paused, breath coming a little quicker.

“You look like you do when you’re calculating tyre degradation,” she called out. “Come try it.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know how. I don’t know the right technique.”

“That’s the whole point,” she said, brushing hair from her face. “You’re not supposed to know how. You’re just supposed to do it badly and laugh.”

Alexander set his wine glass down carefully. The perfectionist, the human calculator, deliberately doing something poorly? The concept was almost physically uncomfortable. Yet something in Gemma’s expression, in the freedom of her movement, pulled at him.

He stepped onto the grass, and Enzo immediately bounded over, circling him expectantly.

“I haven’t done a cartwheel since I was seven,” he warned.

“Perfect. The less recent practice, the better.”

Alexander took a deep breath. He felt strangely nervous, more nervous than before make-or-break qualifying laps. Because there, he knew exactly what to do. Here, on his own lawn, he was stepping into unknown territory.

He launched into the cartwheel with the same precision he approached everything, and immediately overbalanced, landing in an ungraceful heap on the grass. Enzo pounced immediately, licking his face as Gemma’s laughter rang out across the garden.

And then, to his surprise, Alexander found himself laughing too. Not the measured chuckle he permitted himself sometimes, but something deeper, more genuine. The sound felt foreign in his throat these days.

“See?” Gemma said, dropping down beside him on the grass. “Some things aren’t meant to be perfect.”

Alexander stretched out, feeling the cool grass against his back, watching the Italian sky deepen toward evening. Enzo flopped down beside him, panting happily. For the first time in longer than he could remember, Alexander wasn’t analysing anything, wasn’t deconstructing a problem or planning his next move.

He was simply existing in the moment, imperfectly, completely.

“The funny thing is,” Gemma said, “I think I actually enjoyed that more than any cartwheel I’ve done in competition. When I wasn’t performing it for someone else’s judgment. I was doing it for the pure feeling of it.” She turned to face him. “When was the last time you drove just for the sensation, with no data analysis, no lap times, no optimisation?”

Alexander considered this, searching his memory. “Buckmore Park, in Kent. At a regional karting race when I was eight,” he said finally. “Before my father taught me about analysing racing lines and braking points. I just drove as fast as I could, feeling my way around the track. Guessing, feeling, not knowing.”

“And how did it feel?”

“Pure,” he admitted. “Terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. I remember the wind against my helmet, the vibration through the steering wheel, the sense that it was just me and the kart creating something together.” He paused, surprised by the vividness of the memory. “I finished sixth, I think. But I don’t remember caring about that part at all.”

They lay in silence for a while, side by side on the grass, close but not touching. The garden gradually shifted from golden afternoon to the soft blue of early evening.

“Do you think you’ve been trying to be in control ever since?” Gemma asked finally, her voice gentle.

Alexander didn’t answer immediately. The question penetrated deeper than he’d expected, touching something he rarely examined.

“Perhaps,” he said eventually. “Though I’d argue it’s served me well.”

“It has,” she agreed. “You wouldn’t be where you are without it. But maybe there’s room for both? The precision and the cartwheel?”

---

THE ROMA

Race day, Abu Dhabi, 2024

The morning air hangs cool and still over Abu Dhabi as we slide into the Ferrari Roma. Alexander takes the driver’s seat. A given on these mornings. Amy settles beside him, eyes still heavy with sleep, clutching a travel mug of coffee like a talisman against the early hour. Neither speaks. They don’t need to.

The quiet drive to the circuit is their ritual on race weekends: before the world descends, before the pressure mounts, before Alexander becomes property of the paddock. The Roma purrs to life with a restrained growl, its elegant lines belying the power beneath the bonnet. Today, that resonance feels particularly apt.

Abu Dhabi 2024. The championship decider. Again.

I observe them from the back seat, notebook closed out of respect for these private moments. They’ve generously allowed me to witness their pre-race routine during my time documenting Alexander’s season, but I’ve learned to make myself as unobtrusive as possible. Some moments aren’t meant to be interrupted by questions.

Amy studies her phone, scrolling through the day’s schedule with practiced efficiency despite the hour. Alexander drives with the same measured precision he applies to everything: signalling perfectly, maintaining appropriate speed, respecting every traffic rule with almost comical exactitude. The man who pushes boundaries at 200 mph is scrupulously law-abiding at 50.

They merge onto the highway, still empty in these early Sunday morning hours. The road stretches ahead, a ribbon of possibility in the gentle blue light. For a moment, everything is stillness: the car, their breath, the weight of expectation.

Then something shifts.

Alexander’s hand moves to the gear paddle. His eyes flick briefly to Amy, a flash of mischief replacing the focused calm. Before she can react, he downshifts and presses the accelerator with purpose.

The Roma responds instantly, unleashing a throaty roar that seems to startle even the air around them. The car lunges forward, pushing us back against leather seats as the speedometer climbs with hungry intensity. The world outside blurs into streaks of shadow and light.

Amy turns to Alexander, eyebrows raised in a question. This isn’t their normal routine. This isn’t the methodical, controlled Alexander Macalister who approaches race weekends with laser focus. This is something else.

He catches her glance, and for a brief moment, his face transforms. The smile that spreads across his features isn’t the measured, media-ready one he offers to cameras. It’s unguarded, almost boyish, a glimpse of joy uncomplicated by expectation.

“Sometimes,” he says, easing off the accelerator and returning to his usual careful pace, “when you’re in a car like this, you’ve got to give the car what it wants.” He pats the centre console affectionately, as if the Roma were a living thing that had been briefly sated.

Amy’s surprise melts into something warmer. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head in mock disapproval, but the smile tugging at her lips betrays her. This is the Alexander few people ever see, the one who can find unexpected delight in the middle of the most pressured weekend of his career.

“Just making sure the car works properly,” he adds with exaggerated innocence. “Very important diagnostic procedure.”

“Of course,” Amy replies dryly. “Purely technical.”

They settle back into comfortable silence, but something has shifted in the atmosphere. The tension that had been building for days seems to have eased fractionally. The weight of a championship hanging in the balance, the echoes of 2021’s heartbreak, the expectations of the tifosi and Ferrari’s long drought: all of it felt lighter now.

I’ve spent enough time with them now to recognise the unspoken language they share. From my vantage point, I watch Amy studying Alexander from the corner of her eye. His posture is more relaxed now, hands loose on the wheel.

I remember my conversation with Amy days ago, when she’d described Alexander’s evolution since their partnership began. “He used to approach everything as if there was a correct solution to be discovered, a perfect line to be found,” she’d told me. “It’s taken years for him to understand that sometimes the greatest joy comes from straying off that perfect line, from embracing the unplanned moments rather than rigidly following the optimal path.”

Looking at her face now, I can see a depth of understanding that goes beyond professional management. She’s seen every iteration of Alexander Macalister over the years: the devastated young man after Abu Dhabi 2021, the hardened competitor of 2022, the evolving human being who found and lost love with Gemma, the focused challenger of this season.

But this Alexander, the one who can find joy in a moment of pure sensation mere hours before the most important race of his career, this is the one she’s proudest to know. I can see it written in her expression, in the way she relaxes beside him, in the affectionate exasperation she doesn’t bother to hide.

As the Yas Marina Circuit appears on the horizon, its distinctive architecture catching the first proper light of morning, Alexander gives her a quick glance.

“Ready?” he asks.

The question encompasses more than the day ahead. It carries the weight of their journey together, the years of work, the disappointments, the triumphs, the possibilities that await.

Amy nods. “Always.”

Alexander guides the Roma toward the circuit entrance in his precise, controlled driving. By the time we reach the Ferrari hospitality area, his game face will be firmly in place: composed, focused, ready for the challenge ahead.

But for now, in this car, in this moment, he is simply Alexander. The man who occasionally remembers that even the most serious pursuits contain moments of unexpected joy.

---

THE CAR RIDE

50 miles outside of Milan

January, 2025

Amy’s fingers drummed an irregular rhythm on the steering wheel as the Alfa Romeo Stelvio merged onto the A4 from Bergamo. Alexander glanced up from his phone, catching the unconscious gesture immediately. Amy’s eyes remained fixed on the road ahead, but the slight furrow between her brows told him everything he needed to know.

I learned about this drive during a conversation with Amy weeks later, and her recollection revealed much about how Alexander had evolved since becoming champion.

“The old Alexander would have been entirely absorbed in post-meeting analysis,” Amy told me, sitting in our usual café near the Ferrari factory. “Dissecting every detail, plotting next steps, completely oblivious to anything else. But this Alexander, the one who’d emerged since Abu Dhabi 2024, noticed something was wrong immediately.”

They had just left a meeting with a potential partner for The Bridge Foundation. A technical equipment manufacturer interested in providing simulators at significantly reduced cost. By all accounts, the meeting had gone well, but as they headed south toward Milan, the atmosphere in the car carried an unmistakable tension.

“Are you stressed with how the meeting went?” he asked, setting his phone down. “I thought it went fine. All things considered?”

Amy kept her eyes on the road. “No, I agree. It went fine. No concerns.”

“Okay. So why are you biting your lip like that? That’s one of your three stress tells.”

“My stress tells?” she laughed, genuinely surprised. “I do not have a ‘stress tell.’ Let alone three of them.”

“Yeah, you do,” Alexander insisted gently. “You drum your fingers when you’re weighing options. You bite your lip when something’s bothering you but you’re trying to ignore it. And you check your phone every thirty seconds when you’re worried about something but don’t want to discuss it.” He paused, watching her expression. “Do you want to talk about it?”

This simple exchange marked something profound for Amy. For years, their relationship had been characterised by her uncanny ability to read Alexander’s moods and needs. Now, he was demonstrating the same awareness of her.

“No, it’s fine,” she deflected. “It’s nothing you need to know about. It’s not work-related, actually.”

“Okay. I can talk about things that are not about work. Especially if they’re bothering you in any way.”

Amy couldn’t help but mock this newfound attentiveness. “You can? Mr ‘Beautiful Mind’, telemetry data, laser-focus on diff dampeners or whatever they are that you didn’t realise Shakira was standing a foot away from you introducing herself?”

Alexander groaned, acknowledging the reference to an embarrassing moment at the previous year’s Miami Grand Prix. “Okay, yes. But that was a race weekend. And… and I’m trying not to be that guy so much.”

“Oh?” Amy raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

“He’s useful. We need him. But… maybe I’m not just him. You know? Does that make any sense?”

“It does…” she admitted, slowing for traffic.

“I know that guy, me, can be a little much sometimes. A little intense. I think it’s probably hard to be around him too much. A little hard to… lose your friend in all that.”

“Maybe, a little,” Amy conceded.

This acknowledgment, that his singularly focused racing mindset might come at the cost of genuine connection, represented something Amy had never expected to hear from Alexander.

“Give me a try then?” he offered. “We’ve got at least 35 minutes until we hit Milan, and then we have city traffic. Sometimes it helps to just say things out loud. I promise I won’t try to analyse it like a dampener diff readout, or whatever you called it.”

When Amy recounted this moment to me, she paused, still seemingly affected by the memory.

“That was the moment I realised something fundamental had changed between us,” she said. “For nearly a decade, I’d been his sounding board, his confidante, the person who listened while he processed. He was offering to reverse those roles entirely.”

After several moments of hesitation, Amy began speaking about a complex situation that had arisen in her personal life.

“That’s a lot to carry,” Alexander said softly when she finished explaining. “A lot to be carrying around with you in addition to the ten thousand things you’ve got going on already.”

“Twenty thousand,” Amy corrected him with a small smile.

“Twenty thousand, right,” he acknowledged. “I understand why that is weighing on you, and I’m sorry you’re dealing with this right now.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, then repeated with more feeling, “Thank you.”

“Last year,” Alexander admitted to her, “I probably wouldn’t have pressed past the moment you told me it was not about work. I was… not great at seeing beyond the race.”

Amy’s surprise at this self-awareness was evident. “You’re being a bit hard on yourself.”

“No, I’m being honest,” he countered. “I didn’t make space for other people’s lives because I was so consumed with my own goals. I’m sorry for that.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Alexander asked after a moment.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, if you want someone to bounce ideas off, or just tell you all your ideas are amazing, I’m in,” he offered. “If you want someone to tell you that this person is being a childish moron who is beneath you in every way imaginable and is literally only a burden on Earth’s precious resources… then I’m in. If you want someone to sit and listen quietly and only move to keep your wine glass refilled, I’m in.”

Amy laughed a genuine release of tension. “Okay. Maybe a little bit of each would be nice.”

Alexander checked the time on the dashboard, then glanced at his phone calendar. “Actually, I should reschedule this evening’s strategy session with the team. I can move it to tomorrow.”

“What? No, absolutely not,” Amy protested. “That’s important for Barcelona prep.”

“This is important too,” Alexander insisted gently. “I know how your mind gets when there is something bothering you like this. You should take some time for yourself, or we could look into options for it, or even just have dinner and talk more. Whatever would help most.”

“Alexander, that’s not necessary. I can handle it and do my job.”

“I know you can,” he said, his voice softer than usual. “You can handle everything. That’s never been in question. But maybe it’s not about capability. Maybe it’s about not having to handle everything alone.”

Amy fell silent.

“Besides,” Alexander continued, “maybe part of me being ‘my best self’ is making space for you to be your whole self too, not just my manager.”

Then he said something that crystallised the transformation in their relationship.

“Amy, you mean a lot to me. You told me once that I mattered, regardless of what results I achieved on track.”

“You’re paraphrasing, but go on,” she prompted, merging into the right lane.

“I always kind of took that to mean even if I didn’t win, that I was someone you would still value. But I’m seeing another meaning to that now. That also when I win, I mattered just as much. You were saying that you valued me for who I was, and not just for what I could do. Although I love you and Adamo and Claudia, I don’t think I made sure you always felt that from me, too.” He looked out the window briefly, gathering his thoughts. “That you all mattered to me, regardless of your efficiency, and your competence, and your dedication. These past few years I have been very demanding. In what I expected of myself, and by extension, you.”

It was a moment of remarkable self-awareness. Alexander recognising that his relentless pursuit of excellence had created a one-way dynamic where his needs had always taken priority.

“I didn’t give myself permission to be anything other than my role, to give anything other than maximum commitment in everything at all times,” he continued. “I think I set that bar for everyone without thought to the cost. You all rose to meet every challenge and exceed every expectation I had. So there was a lot of good that came out of this pressure, so much growth and so much professional satisfaction… But I never allowed any of us to feel anything else. It was always intense and always ‘be better than yesterday’ no matter what else might be going on for you.”

“Baby, I would do it all again in an instant,” Amy assured him. “We all would.”

“Thank you, I know. I would too. It’s just…” Alexander paused, considering how to articulate what had changed inside him. “I’ll frame it this way. For myself and for you. I think my new challenge, my new puzzle to figure out, is ‘how can I continue to be my best at what I do, without sacrificing the rest of me to do it?’ Are you in?”

“I’m in, baby,” Amy said, with the warmth of someone who had waited years to hear those words.

“Okay. I feel like we should pull over and hug it out, or something!” Alexander suggested, only half-joking.

“You’re incorrigible,” she laughed.

“Matching tattoos then?” he offered.

As they approached the Milan city limits, Alexander reached for his phone again. Amy expected him to return to his emails or race preparations, but instead, she glimpsed him adding a reminder: “Call Amy to check in - tomorrow morning.”

When Amy shared this experience with me weeks later, her expression conveyed both surprise and profound satisfaction.

“That drive changed something between us,” she explained, fingering her necklace thoughtfully. “For the first time, it felt like we were just people. Not manager and driver, not protector and protected, but two people who care about each other’s whole lives, not just the parts that serve a purpose.”

She looked up with a slight smile. “It’s funny. We reached Abu Dhabi 2024 with Alexander thinking the championship would be the crowning achievement. But I think learning to see past that achievement, learning to be fully present, to see others completely, that’s his greater victory. The journey game him perspective, and the championship gave him permission to evolve. Or maybe, re-emerge.”

---

May 2025

The mid-morning light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Alexander’s home gym, casting long rectangles across the polished concrete floor. I had heard about this particular moment from both Adamo and Alexander, each telling slightly different versions that revealed as much about the narrator as the incident itself. But it was Adamo’s account, shared over espresso at a café near his Bologna apartment, that captured the significance of what transpired.

“It was about two months before the wedding,” Adamo told me, eyes crinkling with the memory. “I was completely overwhelmed with all the planning. You know Italians… a wedding isn’t just a ceremony, it’s a production. Two big families, traditions to uphold, expectations to meet.”

According to Adamo, they were midway through Alexander’s strength session. Alexander was completing a set of seated dumbbell shoulder presses, pushing himself to failure as he always did. Normally, this would be the moment Adamo stepped in with encouragement or a slight assist on the final repetition. A choreography they had perfected over years.

Instead, Alexander lowered the weights and found Adamo staring blankly at the wall, mind clearly elsewhere.

“Adamo? Are you okay?” Alexander asked, still catching his breath.

Adamo startled back to the present. “What? Yes. I’m… oh, I’m sorry. You made it to twelve reps or…?”

“Adamo! What’s the deal today?”

“No, I’m sorry, Alexander. I’m in the zone now. Let’s shift to working on your back.”

The Alexander of previous years would have nodded and moved on, perhaps slightly irritated at the lapse in attention. The implicit hierarchy had always been clear: Alexander’s needs came first because that was what Adamo was paid for, what the team required, what the championship demanded.

“We can take a second, Adamo,” Alexander said instead. “Are you really alright? You’ve been kind of elsewhere all hour. Is it the wedding, or…?”

Adamo’s expression shifted from professional composure to genuine surprise.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Alex,” he admitted. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind this week. Wedding prep has hit a whole other gear. There’s just a lot to keep track of, and I guess I was doing some of that now without realising.”

When Adamo recounted this to me, he paused here, taking a sip of his coffee. “You have to understand… in six years I had never let my personal life interfere with Alexander’s training. Not once. Not when my father was ill, not during my own breakup three years ago. Nothing. And suddenly here I was, mentally planning seating arrangements while the world champion was pushing reps to failure.”

Alexander’s response surprised him even more.

“I get that. This is a big deal for you and Elaina, and it’s natural that a lot of your focus is on her and making this day great.”

The validation was unexpected, but what followed was unprecedented.

“Is there any way I can help,” Alexander asked, “besides drafting an amazing best man speech even though I promised you I wouldn’t give a best man speech?”

Adamo laughed at the memory. “That was such an Alexander thing! Saying something real, and then gently avoiding it appearing like a big deal by following it with a joke. But I tried to brush it off, move us back to the workout. ‘Let’s get you set up on the seated cable row,’ I said.”

But Alexander wouldn’t be redirected.

“Okay, but look, Adamo, what about this? You pick a day or two this week or next for yourself. Make your calls, work through your to-do list a bit. Feel like you’re making some progress. I’ll be fine doing my own workouts for a few days. I’ll make my own damn smoothies too.”

The offer hung in the air between them. Years of established roles and expectations suddenly shifted.

“I tried to refuse,” Adamo told me. “It felt wrong, somehow. ‘Thank you, really, that’s so kind, but…’ Alexander cut me off.”

“Adamo! Fratello. Mio amico,” Alexander insisted. “It’s fine. I have a race every other week. You and Elaina get married once. Think of it this way: I need you, I rely on you, but also I’ll be fine without you every once in a while.”

When Adamo recounted this moment, I could see the emotion still lingered. “I took this deep breath. It felt like the first full breath I’d taken in weeks. And I said “Okay. But still no speeches!’”

Later, when I asked Alexander about this incident, his account was characteristically more analytical.

“I noticed Adamo’s attention patterns had changed,” he explained. “His focus, which is normally exceptional, was fragmented. In the past, I might have interpreted that as simply a lapse. But I realised two things: first, that Adamo has supported me through countless personal challenges without ever letting his own slip into our work; and second, that I’m now capable of managing without perfect conditions.”

What struck me about both accounts was how they revealed the transformation in Alexander. The driver who once required everyone around him to adapt to his singular focus had become someone capable of seeing others’ needs and adjusting his own expectations accordingly.

It wasn’t just a momentary kindness. It represented something more profound. The gradual dissolution of the compartmentalisation that had defined Alexander’s approach to relationships. The clear demarcation between professional support and personal connection had blurred. The champion who had once required perfect conditions was making room for human imperfection.

“Did you take the time off?” I asked Adamo.

He nodded. “Three days the following week. I got so much done, and Elaina was shocked! She’d been expecting me to be working right up to the ceremony. When I told her it was Alexander’s idea, she said something I’ll never forget: ‘He’s finally learning to care for others the way you’ve cared for him.’”

As Adamo told it, when he returned to work, Alexander had indeed completed his scheduled workouts. Though with slightly modified routines that Adamo had to correct.

“His form on Romanian deadlifts was… così così,” Adamo laughed. “But he’d made decent smoothies. And more importantly, he’d managed perfectly well without me hovering over every rep. Maybe that was something we both needed to learn.”

The small episode revealed a larger truth: that Alexander’s post-championship evolution wasn’t just about his relationship with racing, but with the people who made that racing possible. The compartmentalised excellence that had carried him to the championship was giving way to something more integrated, more human. A composition still in progress, but with all the elements finally in harmony.

---

AMY’S ARTISTIC APPROACH

February 2025

Amy’s modernist Milan apartment was fifteen minutes’ walk from the Duomo but felt worlds away from the tourist crowds. As I arrived for our interview, she was carefully adjusting a framed photograph on a sleek, modern bookshelf. One of several personal touches that made the space distinctly hers.

“I’m still settling in,” she admitted, stepping back to assess her handiwork. “After years of hotel rooms and temporary rentals, having a proper home base takes some getting used to.”

The space reflected Amy’s evolving identity in subtle but striking ways. A collection of art books occupied one shelf (contemporary Italian artists, primarily) while a few tasteful pieces of #57 racing memorabilia were thoughtfully arranged on another. A corkboard displayed postcards from locations that weren’t on the F1 calendar. A writing desk positioned near the window overlooked a small but vibrant courtyard garden.

“I never thought of myself as someone who cared about views,” she remarked, following my gaze. “But it turns out I do.”

We settled into a comfortable seating area, a far cry from the functional hotel lobbies and paddock offices where we’d conducted many of our previous conversations.

“I wanted to get your perspective on Alexander’s evolution since the championship,” I explained, setting up my recorder. “Everyone’s noticed the changes, but few people have your unique vantage point.”

Amy’s response began with the measured professionalism I’d come to expect. Analytical assessments of Alexander’s performance, the team dynamics, the commercial implications of their success, the hunger still as strong as ever (backed up by his 2025 performances, she noted). But as our conversation progressed, something shifted. Perhaps it was the comfort of her own space, or the distance from the paddock’s constant scrutiny, but our conversation gradually moved from discussing Alexander’s evolution to revealing her own.

“He has changed in some unexpected ways” she acknowledged, tucking her legs beneath her on the sofa. It was a casual posture I’d never seen from her. “He doesn’t rely on me to anticipate everything anymore. He’s started to be the one to anticipate, to initiate. Alex handling more himself has created space I didn’t know existed.”

“What kind of space?” I prompted.

“Professional space, initially. We’ve expanded the management team this season, brought in specialists for different aspects of his career. I’m delegating things I never would have trusted to anyone else before.” She smiled slightly. “The Amy of three years ago would have found that physically painful.”

But the changes weren’t merely organisational. As our conversation continued, Amy revealed aspects of her life beyond the caretaking of a F1 driver that I’d never glimpsed before.

“I’ve been taking writing classes,” she admitted, gesturing toward the desk. “Creative non-fiction. I always loved writing, even back in my legal days, but technical writing is a world away from finding your own voice.”

The art books, she explained, weren’t merely decorative. She’d begun making small investments in emerging Italian artists, attending gallery openings and studio visits. “It started as a purely practical thing, exploring how we might diversify Alexander’s portfolio, but became something I genuinely love. There’s something about watching talent develop, seeing potential realised…”

“Like with Alexander,” I observed.

“Yes, though with much less pressure and no one trying to crash into your investments at 300 kilometres per hour.” Her dry humour hadn’t changed.

What struck me most was how Amy explicitly connected her evolution to Alexander’s. “It’s strange,” she reflected, “his becoming more… balanced has somehow given me permission to do the same. For years, we were both defined by what we did rather than who we were. My identity was wrapped up in making sure he succeeded.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m remembering there’s an Amy beyond Alexander Macalister’s manager. I’m reconnecting with friends outside racing. I’ve even been on a few dates.” She raised an eyebrow, daring me to include that detail.

“You seem surprised by your own evolution,” I noted.

“I am, in some ways. It’s ironic that Alexander’s success, the thing we fought for all these years, is what freed me to think beyond it. Before the championship, there was always this driving need. The next race, the next season, the unfulfilled potential. The championship wasn’t just validation for Alexander. It was validation for both of us.”

She paused, considering. “It created space to ask ‘what else?’ rather than just ‘what next?’”

“Has this changed your relationship with Alexander?” I asked.

“Yes, but not in the way you might expect. I think we’re closer, but less… entwined.” She searched for the right words. “We text less about logistics and more about… staying connected. I no longer feel responsible for every aspect of his existence, and he doesn’t expect me to be.”

Amy smiled, recalling a recent example. “Last night, he called just to tell me about a documentary he’d watched. Not because he needed anything, just because he thought I’d find it interesting too. It sounds small, but that kind of call never would have happened during our career until now. There just wasn’t room for it.”

“Winning the championship wasn’t the revelation. It was what it cost him, what it cost all of us to get there. That was his wake-up call. The summit showed him the price of the climb.” Amy continued, “He’s a warm, caring, and compassionate person, but I think he’ll admit today that he sacrificed an awful lot of that in 2024. Not because he needed to be tough to compete, or anything macho like that, but because the amount of focus and energy he required meant he left nothing else available for the rest of him. I think part of that joy we all saw in Abu Dhabi was the sensation of the blood rushing back to the extremity after being starved of oxygen for 24 gruelling races.”

She cited numerous examples of Alexander reacting with an aim for more balance: Alexander rearranging an important meeting so that Claudia could attend her nephew’s school play. Insisting that Adamo take a proper honeymoon after his wedding rather than the abbreviated break he’d planned around F1 testing. Even advocating with Ferrari management about new work/life balance incentives.

As our conversation neared its conclusion, Amy rose and retrieved a framed photograph from her desk. It showed the core team (Alexander, Amy, Adamo, and Claudia) in what appeared to be a hotel suite directly after Abu Dhabi 2024. A large trophy sat on a table nearby, but no one was looking at it. Instead, they were clearly in the middle of laughing at something, bodies relaxed, defences down. It wasn’t the polished celebration shown in official Ferrari media, but something far more genuine.

“Claudia set the self-timer,” Amy explained. “But none of us could keep it together long enough to hold a pose! We were all just so light and so free that night. This is the only photo I have from that night actually, but I can’t think of a better one to remember that day.”

She studied the image for a moment, then met my gaze. “For years, I thought my job was helping Alexander become the champion I knew he could be. Keeping all his boxes neatly separated so he could be that perfectly focused person.” Her voice softened with genuine wonder. “Now, I think we’ve both realised he doesn’t need those boxes anymore. Now he can just be who he is. All the beautiful parts, all the parts that hurt, the parts that feel what each tyre is doing, the parts that make me laugh no matter how jet-lagged or stressed I am. All the parts are him and he can just let them be a wonderfully confusing mess.” Her eyes brightened. “And he can still be fast. Fast, but so much more than that too.”

She smiled, reflective. “Watching him integrate all these pieces of himself made me realise I’d been doing the same thing, in a way. Separating Amy-the-manager from Amy-the-person, setting aside parts of myself because there wasn’t room for them. As if I couldn’t be both competent and creative, strategic and spontaneous.” Her fingers traced the edge of the photograph frame. “This journey gave me perspective about my own balance. That’s the thing about integration. Once you see it happening, you can’t un-see the possibilities for yourself.”

As Amy walked me to her door, she pointed out a small, canvas painting on the wall near the door. An abstract piece in rich blues and golds.

“My first acquisition,” she explained. “The artist is a young woman from Naples who paints at night after working in her family’s restaurant all day. When I met her, she reminded me of Alexander somehow. That same intensity, that drive to create something meaningful against the odds.”

She looked at me with unexpected candour. “People think the hard part is the journey to the summit. It’s not. The hard part is figuring out what to do when you reach it. Not becoming a champion, but living as one. Finding what matters beyond the achievement itself.”

As I walked back through Milan’s golden afternoon light, I realised Amy had articulated something essential about Alexander’s evolution and perhaps about human achievement itself. The championship hadn’t been the end of his journey but merely a doorway to something more complex and ultimately more fulfilling: the integration of the champion with the man, the reconnection of excellence with humanity.

And in witnessing his transformation, Amy had found the courage to undertake her own. Composing a fuller version of herself no longer defined solely by her relationship to Alexander’s success. Together, they were discovering that the spaces beyond achievement might be where the most meaningful stories begin.