Part III: Resonance — Chapter 2
The Frequency
The Perpetual Motion
March 2025
The Gulfstream G600 cuts through the night sky at 41,000 feet, somewhere over the South China Sea. The dark, endless water was broken only by the slow procession of freighters and tankers, their navigation lights blinking rhythmically in the void. A solitary reading light illuminates Alexander’s corner of the otherwise darkened cabin.
“Still at it?” I ask, trying to mask my fatigue. I’d dozed off watching a film I can no longer remember.
Alexander doesn’t look up from his tablet, left hand absently pinching the bridge of his nose in what I’ve come to recognise as his standard concentration gesture. The blue glow from the screen gives his face an otherworldly quality, suspended somewhere between Melbourne and Shanghai, between yesterday and tomorrow.
“Mmm,” he murmurs noncommittally. “Just reviewing some launch data patterns from Australia. Thought I saw something—”
His fingers dance across the screen with practiced precision, expanding charts and comparing telemetry lines that, to me, resemble abstract art more than racing data. In the dim cabin, he could be mistaken for any businessman reviewing quarterly reports, if you ignored the Ferrari insignia on his half-zipped jumper.
“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” I venture. “With back-to-back race weekends and the time zones…”
He smiles slightly without looking up. “Too much to do. Besides, there’s something almost meditative about being suspended like this. No obligations, nothing to distract me. Just… data and time.” He finally glances at his watch, frowning. “Or no time. Or all times simultaneously. We left Sunday, we’ll arrive Tuesday, but it’s actually Monday somewhere beneath us. My watch and my body disagree about which day it is.”
It’s an unusually philosophical observation from Alexander, who typically speaks in precise, technical terms. Perhaps the peculiar limbo of long-haul flights brings out this side of him.
“Feels strange being on this flight without Amy or Adamo,” I remark. “I’ve grown used to your entourage.”
Alexander looks up from his tablet, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. “I wanted them to have some time to just… be themselves. Not always existing as extensions of my schedule.”
“This was Amy’s idea? Making everyone else skip the first double-header?” I ask, assuming this consideration must have come from his ever-protective manager.
Alexander shakes his head, surprising me. “Actually, it was mine. I insisted.”
“Was it a hard sell to the others?”
His mouth quirks into a half-smile. “Amy objected quite forcefully. Said if anyone needed to skip races for recovery, it was me.”
The smile fades to something more thoughtful. “But I’m learning that looking after the team means more than just pushing for performance. Their wellbeing affects everything. Racing is the easy part for me. Everything else… the balancing act, needs more… balance.”
I recognise this consideration as something new. The Alexander of previous seasons might have expected everyone to match his relentless pace, his unwavering commitment. Now, he’s developed the awareness that leadership sometimes means protection, not just inspiration. No doubt something of Amy rubbing off on him.
Yet in his own routine, nothing has changed. The constant movement, the perpetual adjustment to new time zones, the body clock perpetually desynchronised. Twenty-four races across twenty-one countries, technical briefings, sponsor commitments, media obligations: a precision-engineered schedule that allows for no faltering.
“So how does a driver find that time for that recovery?”
Alexander contemplates for a moment, weighing different approaches to answering.
“We just… do. It’s the price of admission into this world. After a while, I suppose I got used to it.”
Used to it. Three words that encapsulate Alexander Macalister’s relationship with Formula 1’s punishing rhythm.
“You know what’s strange?” he says, staring out at the void of night. “I actually sleep better on these flights than at home sometimes. Where there’s no decision to be made, no control to be exercised. The next twelve hours are accounted for. I can’t fit in an extra workout. I can’t make any phone calls. I can’t go spend an extra hour in the simulator. I’m here, for a time. Then eventually I’ll land in Shanghai, and life gets unpaused. Hotel check-in, workout running through whatever routine Adamo created for me, review simulator notes, sleep, then review my track walk notes from last year ahead of the track walk on the next day.”
He recites this itinerary not with resignation but with the comfort of someone describing a well-worn ritual. For Alexander, the rhythm provides certainty. The frequency, that precise, unwavering oscillation between preparation and performance, creates the stability his life has often lacked.
A flight attendant materialises with fresh water bottles, placing them silently on our tray tables. Alexander thanks her with a nod before turning back to me.
“People ask how I handle the travel, the constant motion,” he says, voice quiet against the white noise of the engines. “They’ve got it backward. I don’t handle it. It handles me. Gives me structure.” He taps his tablet screen back to life, the familiar telemetry patterns reflecting in his eyes. “There’s a frequency to this life, Richard. Get the rhythm wrong, and everything falls apart.”
I watch as he slips back into his analysis, his concentration absolute despite crossing continents at nearly 600 mph. In this moment, suspended between time zones, I understand something essential about Alexander Macalister. His life moves to the precise frequency of an engine that cannot falter. Consistent, relentless, perfectly calibrated to extract maximum performance at minimum cost.
While I fight jet lag and disorientation, he appears almost at home in this perpetual transition state. For Alexander, there is no true stasis, only different phases of the same continuous motion. Preparation, execution, analysis. Rinse and repeat, across continents and time zones, at a rhythm most humans would find unsustainable.
Yet for him, it’s not merely sustainable. It’s necessary.
Life By the Calendar
2025
I stood in Alexander’s home office in Maranello, watching as he scrolled through his digital calendar on the large monitor mounted to the wall. The screen was a riot of colour-coded blocks stretching months into the future. Red for race weekends, blue for factory, green for media obligations, yellow for sponsor events, pink for travel, purple for training sessions with Adamo. The white spaces between them, what most would call “free time,” were vanishingly small, appearing as thin slivers between the dominant coloured blocks.
“This is basically my life,” he said, gesturing at the screen with a half-smile. “Twenty-four races, six sprint weekends, three in-season tests, countless sponsor days, and somehow I’m still supposed to find time to sleep.”
The calendar wasn’t just a schedule; it was the architecture of Alexander’s existence. A physical manifestation of the rhythms that governed his world. Looking at it now, I could see how Formula 1 had constructed a life for him that was simultaneously extraordinary and constrained.
“Claudia keeps this updated to the minute,” he continued, clicking on a red block labeled “AUSTIN GP.” It expanded to reveal dozens of sub-entries. Precise times for engineering meetings, media commitments, fan signings, even scheduled meals. “If it’s not in the calendar, it doesn’t exist.”
I noticed small green dots appearing beside certain entries. Recent additions from Claudia, who managed the schedule remotely. The calendar wasn’t static but living, constantly evolving as demands shifted and priorities changed.
“What about personal appointments?” I asked, noticing the absence of anything that might be considered leisure.
Alexander laughed softly. “Those have to be scheduled too.” He pointed to a small orange block wedged between simulator work and a sponsor dinner. “That’s dinner with my neighbor Maria. She’s teaching me to make proper tortellini. Had to book it six weeks in advance.”
The implications were clear. In Alexander’s world, spontaneity was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Even moments of genuine human connection had to be carved out from the relentless march of professional obligations.
Later that day, over coffee with Amy Millie at a small café near the Ferrari factory, I asked about the challenges of managing such a regimented existence.
“The calendar is both our bible and our battlefield,” she said, stirring her espresso thoughtfully. “The reality of Formula 1 is that it consumes everything if you let it. My job isn’t just adding things to Alexander’s schedule; it’s maintaining balance between duty, obligations, and necessity, and protecting the empty spaces so we can occasionally all just be… us.”
She explained how she and Claudia had developed a complex system of boundaries and buffers. Mandatory recovery days after races, regardless of sponsor demands. The occasional half-day marked simply as “unavailable” without explanation. Sacred space for him to remember he’s more than just a Ferrari driver. An occasional gift thrust upon him by Claudia and Amy.
“People see the glamour of twenty-four global destinations,” Amy continued, “but they don’t see the toll of never fully adjusting to any time zone, of living out of suitcases for nine months straight, of birthdays and anniversaries that pass in hotel rooms because that’s where the calendar says you need to be.”
When I asked how Alexander copes with this perpetual motion, her expression softened. “He’s built his identity around it. The calendar isn’t just how he organises his time; it’s how he organises himself. There’s Alexander during race weekends, Alexander during testing, Alexander during the off-season… different versions for different coloured blocks.”
What had initially struck me as rigid and constraining now seemed almost necessary. A framework that allowed him to navigate an existence few could comprehend. The calendar wasn’t just scheduling; it was psychological architecture.
Back at his home that evening, I noticed Alexander checking his phone, then making a small adjustment to his evening routine. When I asked what had changed, he smiled.
“Claudia’s added a strategy meeting for Singapore next Monday. It means shifting some simulator work, which pushes back my training with Adamo, which then conflicts with a call with the foundation.” He shrugged, the complex recalibration already complete in his mind. “You adapt.”
Before leaving, I glanced once more at the calendar on his monitor. The coloured blocks now looked less like constraints and more like the complex notation of a symphony. Each element precisely placed, creating a rhythm that only made sense when viewed as a whole. The white spaces between them weren’t absence but breath, necessary pauses in the composition of a life dictated by the unrelenting beat of Formula 1.
In those slivers of white, I realised, was where Alexander had to find himself beyond the driver, beyond the champion, if only for moments at a time.
Stretching Time
Spring, 2024
The text arrived at 3:12 a.m. Milan time: a small window had opened in Gemma’s schedule. An unexpected injury to one of her teammates meant the planned exhibition in Dallas was cancelled, leaving her with precisely twenty-seven hours before she needed to be back in Houston for a sponsorship commitment.
Ferrari Factory, 9:52 AM
I watched Alexander methodically plot the logistics on his tablet as we took a pause while reviewing race strategies, his fingers dancing across flight paths and time zones with the same precision he applied to racing lines.
“I can take the jet from Maranello after simulator work finishes at 18:00, land in Austin around 10:00 local time,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. “That gives us until… she has to leave for Houston at 13:00 the next day.”
“Fifteen hours then,” I offered, already knowing he’d calculated it precisely.
“Fourteen hours and twenty-three minutes, accounting for airport transfers,” he corrected without looking up. “Worth every minute.”
Amy, seated across the table reviewing his upcoming media obligations, merely raised an eyebrow. She’d seen this dance before. The elaborate contortions of two elite athletes attempting to bend time and geography to their will. Without a word, she began rearranging his schedule, creating the necessary void into which this journey could fit.
“You’ll miss the factory debrief,” she noted, neither approving nor condemning.
“I’ll dial in from the plane on the return leg,” Alexander replied, still focused on the screen. “Ricci can handle the initial data review. I’ll speak with Fred about it.”
The calm, matter-of-fact tone belied the logistical gymnastics being performed. A twelve-hour transatlantic flight for what would amount to a single evening and morning together. The return journey would deposit him back at Maranello with barely four hours to prepare for the next day’s full test session. He’d be running on fumes and determination.
This scene played out in various forms throughout their relationship, as I would learn over months of interviews with them both. What I witnessed that day in the factory was merely one instance of a recurring pattern. The intricate choreography required to align their competing rhythms, if only briefly.
“I kept a log,” Gemma told me months later, as we sat on the veranda of her family home in Austin. She showed me her training journal, where alongside detailed notes about routines and conditioning, she’d documented their meetings, each one a negotiated victory against the tyranny of their schedules.
“Eighteen days,” she pointed to one entry in late January. “That’s how long we managed in one stretch after New Year’s before his sponsor commitments in Japan. But he was back three days later for a long weekend.”
Her finger traced down the page. “Nine days between Miami and his quick stop in Houston.” Another entry: “Twenty-three days between him leaving and his surprise visit during my Colorado training camp.”
The journal revealed what my sporadic observations could not: the full pattern of their relationship’s unique rhythm. A determined effort to minimise separation, yet still marked by constant calculations and compromises.
Alexander, in our interviews, described these reunions with characteristic precision. “There’s an algorithm to it,” he explained during a late-night conversation after a practice session in Imola. “The formula balances total travel time against actual time together. Anything above a 2:1 ratio is viable. Below that becomes… inefficient.”
Yet efficiency, I learned, was not the true metric. “I once flew fourteen hours for a four-hour dinner,” he admitted with a rare, unguarded smile. “By my own formula, completely irrational. But I’d do it again tomorrow.”
Their time together unfolded with the strange elasticity that characterises such stolen moments. Simultaneously stretched and compressed. Over dinner, they spoke of everything and nothing: her Olympics preparation, his championship battle, an amusing story about her niece, his observations about a building he’d admired in Milan he was sure Gemma would love too.
What struck me, from their separate but complementary accounts, was not the content but the quality of their interaction. While the logistics of creating these moments had been tortuous, their actual connection appeared effortless. Here were two people perfectly tuned to each other’s frequency, requiring no warm-up period despite the days or weeks apart.
The winter break had been their longest uninterrupted time together. Three weeks at her family’s lake house, with Alexander making only occasional day trips to satisfy unavoidable obligations. “That was the only time we weren’t counting hours,” Gemma told me. “It felt almost surreal to wake up without calculating when one of us would need to leave.”
But once the season began, the countdown was always present. Over breakfast on the terrace of the hotel suite that morning in Austin with Alexander, Gemma’s eyes repeatedly checked the time, not with impatience but with the resigned awareness of competitive athletes accustomed to immovable deadlines.
“Next time will be easier,” Alexander had said, though both knew this was unlikely. Their respective schedules stretched before them like parallel tracks, occasionally converging but mostly running separate courses.
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” Gemma had replied, reaching for his hand. “But once we’re both standing on the same bit of dirt, everything else about it feels easy.”
“Did it all ever feel like too much effort?” I asked Alexander during one of our final interviews, months after his relationship with Gemma had concluded. We were sitting in the quiet of his home office, late evening light casting long shadows across the floor.
He considered the question with his characteristic thoroughness, glancing briefly at a photograph of Gemma that still held a place among his carefully curated collection of meaningful images.
“The effort wasn’t the problem,” he said finally. “We were both willing to make the effort. That’s what made it work for as long as it did.”
I raised an eyebrow, silently questioning.
“It was about what else had to be sacrificed,” he clarified. “Every moment we created meant something else was compromised. Eventually, the championship required a singular focus that left no room for compromise. And her Olympic preparation demanded the same.”
He paused, looking out toward the Italian countryside. “The mathematics became unsustainable.”
From my conversations with them both, a picture emerged of two elite athletes who approached their relationship with the same intensity and commitment that characterised their sporting careers. They recognised the rhythmic incompatibility of their lives but refused to accept it as insurmountable. Until it finally was. Instead, they created their own unique frequency. One that required elaborate coordination, exhausting travel, and constant adjustment.
Their story represented perhaps the most extreme example of Alexander’s approach to time: his ability to bend it, stretch it, and somehow extract more value from it than seemed physically possible. In a life defined by the relentless drumbeat of the racing calendar, these brief interludes with Gemma created a counter-rhythm, a different tempo that enriched the overall composition.
As Alexander himself put it during one of our conversations: “Sometimes the music is in the spaces between the notes.”
Travelling Home
Various, 2024 & 2025
One of the more surreal aspects of documenting Alexander’s life was witnessing the curious duality of his existence. A man who spent more nights in hotel rooms than his own bed, yet somehow maintained the essential sense of belonging that transcended geography.
I first noticed elements of this during a late-night debrief in his Singapore hotel suite after a particularly gruelling qualifying session. While we discussed the day’s events, I couldn’t help but observe the carefully arranged items on his nightstand: a small wooden frame containing a photograph of his parents, and beside it, a candid shot of Enzo, his Border Collie, mid-leap in his garden. Almost hidden behind these, angled perhaps for more private viewing, was a photograph of Gemma. A seemingly intimate portrait of her features captured with love and artistic flare by someone who saw the truth of the person looking into the lens.
“Do you always travel with these?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of journalistic restraint.
Alexander nodded, glancing at the photographs. “They’re part of the routine.”
Later, arriving early for a scheduled interview in Monaco, I caught him in the middle of what appeared to be a methodical ritual. From his meticulously packed carry-on, he extracted a series of seemingly ordinary objects, each placed with deliberate precision. A small canvas case unfolded to reveal a compact coffee setup. Hand grinder, portable brewer, and a vacuum-sealed package of beans from a specific roaster in Bologna. A leather-bound journal positioned precisely at the corner of the desk. A particular arrangement of pillows on the bed.
“Fifteen minutes,” he explained, noticing my observation. “That’s all it takes to make anywhere feel less like everywhere.”
This procedure, I would learn, was replicated with almost identical precision in every hotel room, on every continent, throughout the relentless Formula 1 calendar. It was neither superstition nor extravagance, but a carefully developed strategy for maintaining equilibrium in a life defined by perpetual motion.
Amy later confided that this routine had evolved significantly since his early days in Formula 1. “He used to resist making himself at home anywhere temporary,” she explained. “It was Gemma who convinced him to bring more personal items. Before that, he’d just exist in these anonymous spaces, like he was trying to deny needing any kind of home at all.”
“Most drivers develop some version of this,” Alexander explained months later as we sat in his kitchen in Italy, watching early spring rain trace patterns on the windows. “Ferrari provides psychological support for handling the travel, but each of us finds our own solution to the dislocation.”
Enzo, now a tangible presence rather than a photograph, lay contentedly at Alexander’s feet, occasionally sighing in that particular way dogs have of expressing complete satisfaction with their current circumstances.
“Charles travels with his own pillowcase. Lewis has specific candles. Max has his whole PlayStation gaming rig thing.” He smiled slightly. “We all create these little portable bubbles of consistency.”
Alexander’s bubble, I discovered through our conversations, had evolved over years of refinement. The coffee ritual wasn’t merely about taste preference but about engaging multiple senses. The distinctive aroma, the meditative process of grinding beans, the familiar sound of hot water on grounds. The journal wasn’t just for recording thoughts but maintained exact dimensions and paper quality regardless of which particular volume accompanied him that month.
“I suppose it’s less about the objects themselves,” he reflected, “and more about creating a sequence that remains constant when everything else is variable. When you wake up in the middle of the night in some unknown hotel room for the umpteenth time, it can be nice to see something you recognise.”
This approach extended beyond physical items to digital consistency. His devices maintained identical layouts and backgrounds regardless of location. Specific pieces of music served as auditory anchors during preparation and recovery. Particular stretching sequences realigned his physical self with his surroundings.
The overall effect was neither to replicate home nor to deny the transience of his existence, but to create sufficient familiarity that his mind could function optimally despite the constant displacement.
During one of our interviews at a hotel in Monza, while getting situated, I noticed him unconsciously adjusting a photograph on the bedside table that I hadn’t seen before. It showed Gemma at what appeared to be her family’s lake house, mid-laugh on a dock, sunlight catching her hair. Our conversation had no connection to her, and their relationship had ended nearly ten months earlier. Yet there it was. Part of his traveling constellation of touchstones.
When I asked about it in a later session at his home, Alexander considered the question with his characteristic thoughtfulness.
“Some things become part of your rhythm,” he finally offered, “even after they’re no longer part of your life.”
He didn’t elaborate further, and I didn’t press. The photo’s presence seemed less about lingering attachment and more about honouring a significant movement in the larger composition of his life. Another constant in his carefully orchestrated environment.
The contrast between Alexander’s elaborate portable rituals and his actual home became apparent the first time I visited his property in the Italian countryside. The house itself reflected Alexander’s character. Architecturally significant without being ostentatious, precisely organised without feeling sterile. But what struck me most was the visible unwinding that occurred as he crossed the threshold.
“I don’t actually feel like my feet touch the ground until I’ve had my face thoroughly licked by Enzo,” he admitted during one conversation, watching the dog’s excited circles as we arrived after a testing session. The statement was delivered with Alexander’s characteristic understatement, but the sentiment behind it was unmistakable.
A housekeeper managed the household with characteristic efficiency during his absences, yet there remained a palpable difference in the space when Alexander occupied it. A subtle shift from house to home that transcended the physical presence of its owner.
In his actual home, I observed, the rituals relaxed. The coffee could be imperfectly brewed. The pillows could be rumpled. The desk could accumulate papers in patterns that would never be tolerated in a hotel suite. Here, control could soften into comfort.
“The difference,” Alexander explained during our final interview for this chapter, “is intention versus existence.”
We sat on his terrace, watching evening light soften the landscape. Enzo had settled contentedly in Alexander’s lap, creating the physical connection that seemed to anchor them both.
“In hotels, I’m deliberately creating something artificial. Constructing a specific environment that allows me to function properly. At home…” he gestured vaguely at the surrounding space, “I simply exist. The rhythm adjusts to me rather than me adjusting to it.”
This distinction illuminated much about Alexander’s approach to his fragmented existence. His traveling rituals weren’t attempts to replicate home, but rather to create a consistent third space, neither home nor entirely foreign, that allowed him to maintain his essential frequency amid constant change.
The photographs, the coffee equipment, the specific arrangements. These weren’t nostalgic attachments but practical tools for maintaining psychological continuity. Each item constructed a bridge between disparate locations, each ritual a thread connecting discrete moments into a coherent whole.
Yet for all the effectiveness of these carefully crafted surroundings, there remained a fundamental difference that no amount of portable consistency could overcome. I observed it in the almost imperceptible relaxation of his shoulders when he crossed his own threshold, in the way Enzo’s enthusiastic greeting seemed to reset his internal rhythm, in the subtle shift from Alexander the driver to simply Alexander.
“Hotels are where I stay,” he told me, as Enzo shifted position in his lap. “This is where I live.”
The Digital Pulse
“Communication,” Alexander once explained to me during a long flight between races, “is just another form of time management.”
We were discussing the challenge of maintaining relationships across continents and time zones when he unlocked his phone and showed me his home screen. A meticulously organised grid where each row corresponded to a different sphere of his life. Professional contacts occupied the top half, personal the bottom. The arrangement wasn’t aesthetic but functional. A visual representation of the different frequencies at which his life operated.
This digital architecture revealed much about Alexander’s approach to connection. In a world where his physical presence was constrained by an unyielding calendar, technology served as both bridge and buffer, maintaining critical frequencies while filtering out the noise.
Over the months of our interviews, Alexander granted me limited but illuminating access to these digital rhythms. What emerged was a portrait of connection far more nuanced than his public persona might suggest. Multiple conversational lanes operating simultaneously, each with its own distinct cadence and vocabulary.
“The engineers speak in data,” Alexander told me during one of our sessions at the factory. “It’s a language of absolutes.”
He showed me a recent exchange with Ricci. Lines of text dense with numbers, technical shorthand, and precise observations. There was no social preamble, no conversational padding. Just crystalline analysis of Pirelli compounds and differential settings.
“What looks cold to outsiders is actually extremely intimate,” he explained. “Ricci can tell my mood from how I structure these messages. If I lead with traction issues rather than aero balance, he knows I’m concerned about the race pace. It’s… our particular frequency.”
This technical directness contrasted sharply with his communications with Amy. Here the language shifted dramatically. A private shorthand developed over years, loaded with references meaningless to anyone else. Emoji usage bordered on the ridiculous. Elaborate sequences that formed inside jokes and coded messages invisible to outsiders.
“I don’t compose messages to Amy,” Alexander admitted with rare sheepishness. “I just… type. It’s the digital equivalent of thinking aloud.”
One example he showed me featured a string of seemingly random symbols: coffee cup, racing car, bomb, chicken, violin. Followed by Amy’s immediate reply: “Absolutely not. Monday at earliest. And bring your own shampoo this time.”
When I raised an eyebrow, Alexander merely shrugged. “Efficiency.”
“Does technology make connection easier or just different?” I asked during a conversation at his home in Italy. Enzo dozed at his feet, the physical embodiment of connection that required no translation.
Alexander considered the question with typical thoroughness. “Different modalities reveal different aspects,” he finally offered. “Certain thoughts are easier to express in writing than verbally. There’s time to compose, to consider. It creates space for precision.”
This precision, I realised through our discussions, allowed Alexander to calibrate his communications with remarkable specificity. With Charles, his messages were playful and light. Quick exchanges of memes, gentle mockery, Formula 1 insider jokes. Their WhatsApp history read like conversations between brothers, full of competitive banter and genuine affection.
“Charles brings out my ridiculous side,” Alexander acknowledged. “He has this talent for puncturing my seriousness, even remotely.”
Verstappen and several other drivers maintained a group chat that featured a running commentary on race weekends. Observations that would never reach public ears, dissections of team catering policies, occasionally merciless teasing. Here, Alexander participated in a particular fraternity that existed outside national loyalties or team affiliations. The shared language of twenty men experiencing a reality incomprehensible to outsiders.
“I’m probably more myself in that group than anywhere in the paddock,” he admitted. “There’s no performative aspect required when everyone shares the same peculiar existence.”
It was his digital connection with Gemma, however, that revealed the most unexpected rhythm. Their relationship had spanned nine months, five continents, and innumerable virtual bridges across the geographical voids between meetings.
During one of our interviews after their relationship had ended, Alexander hesitantly shared a small window into this communication. Not the intimate content, but the pattern itself. Their exchange history revealed a distinctive cadence: brief but constant contact, messages timed to align with their respective schedules, developing a synchronicity despite physical separation.
“The advantage of time zones,” he explained, “is that sometimes your day is ending as hers begins. You can share what happened while the other was sleeping… create continuity despite the gaps.”
What struck me most was how these digital conversations functioned not as replacement for physical presence but as extensions of it. The digital equivalent of holding hands across impossible distances. Their messages carried the particular intimacy of two people whose connection transcended geographic reality.
“We developed shorthand references that were essentially time machines,” Alexander explained. “A single phrase could transport us back to a specific moment we’d shared. Four words could recreate an entire weekend.”
The digital archive of their relationship, thousands of messages spanning almost a year, existed now as both record and reminder. When I asked if maintaining these connections digitally had been sufficient, his response was characteristically measured.
“Technology allowed us to maintain the frequency,” he said carefully. “But a frequency isn’t the same as a melody.”
In my observation, Alexander’s digital communications revealed aspects of himself that rarely emerged in person. Greater emotionality with Amy, more playfulness with Charles, deeper philosophical musings with Gemma. When I questioned whether technology allowed him to show more of himself, his answer surprised me.
“It’s not about showing more, but different facets,” he explained. “In writing, there’s time to access parts of myself that don’t always emerge in real-time conversation. It’s not more authentic, just differently authentic.”
This perspective illuminated Alexander’s approach to digital communication not as a second-best alternative to physical presence, but as a complementary channel, one that allowed different aspects of connection to flourish.
“People assume Formula 1 drivers live in a perpetual future. Always focused on the next corner, the next race,” he reflected during our final conversation on this topic. “But technology creates a strange continuity. I can be simultaneously present in the garage at Silverstone and responding to Charles’ ridiculous meme from yesterday and planning tomorrow’s strategy with Ricci.”
This digital omnipresence, I realised, was both blessing and burden. It allowed Alexander to maintain critical connections across impossible distances, to exist in multiple emotional and professional spaces simultaneously. Yet it also demanded constant attention, another frequency requiring management in an already complex symphony.
As we finished our conversation, Alexander’s phone vibrated with a message. Glancing at the screen, he smiled slightly, that rare, unguarded expression I’d learned to recognise as genuine emotion breaking through his composed exterior.
“Amy,” he explained, tucking the phone away without responding. “She can wait five minutes. We’re almost done, yes?”
The small moment revealed perhaps the most important aspect of Alexander’s relationship with technology: for all its importance in maintaining connections, he retained the discipline to prioritise the person physically present. The digital pulse was vital but subordinate to the rhythm of actual presence.
In a life defined by absence as much as presence, technology provided the connective tissue between disparate moments. Yet Alexander never confused the medium with the message. Each platform, each contact, each digital rhythm served its purpose in maintaining the complex web of relationships that defined his existence.
Yet as sophisticated as these digital connections had become, they remained tools rather than substitutes. Means of preserving frequencies that would otherwise be lost to distance and time, but never replacements for the fundamental human need to occasionally stand on the same patch of dirt.
The Tempo Change
Late Summer, 2024
The shift happened somewhere between Monza and Singapore.
I was reviewing Azerbaijan race footage with Alexander in the Ferrari hospitality area when I first noticed it. A subtle change in his demeanour that went beyond the normal focus I’d witnessed throughout our time together. His eyes tracked the screen with an intensity that seemed to bend the space around him, his usual measured responses replaced by single-word assessments. The typical post-session pleasantries with passing team members were abbreviated to the point of curtness.
Even the rhythmic tapping of his fingers on the table (a habit I’d come to recognise as his processing pattern) had accelerated slightly, like a metronome shifted to a higher tempo.
This was the first clear manifestation of what Amy would later call “championship mode.” The gradual compression of Alexander’s world into a narrowing tunnel of singular purpose. The phenomenon itself wasn’t unique to him; every driver who finds themselves in championship contention undergoes some version of this transformation. But Alexander’s particular expression of it revealed aspects of his character that might otherwise have remained hidden.
“It’s not a conscious decision,” he explained months later when I asked about this period. “It’s more like… a frequency shift. Everything not directly connected to performance begins to fall outside my range of perception.”
The numbers tell part of the story. After his victory in Monza, his sixth of the season, Alexander’s championship battle with Verstappen had condensed to a margin of just four points. The victories in Azerbaijan, Singapore, and the United States that followed created momentum that transformed possibility into probability. But the mathematical reality only partially illuminated the psychological architecture being constructed around and within him.
“We’ve seen this before,” Amy told me during a brief conversation in Singapore, as Alexander was sequestered with his engineers. “In 2021, but this is different. More… contained.”
She showed me her phone. Her version of the shared calendar, but a more detailed schedule that seemed to account for every minute of Alexander’s day, colour-coded by energy expenditure and recovery periods. The level of micromanagement was startling, with even seemingly mundane activities like media obligations categorised by mental load and emotional demand.
“The invisible architecture,” she explained, noticing my surprise. “Everything non-essential gets filtered through this system now. My job is to create a containment field that lets the essential energies flow while blocking the static.”
She paused, considering something, then added with characteristic directness: “You know about Rosberg’s 2016 campaign, I assume?”
I nodded, familiar with the legendary single-minded focus that had enabled him to defeat Lewis Hamilton before immediately retiring.
“Nico planned it like a military operation,” Amy continued. “Discussed it with Vivian, set boundaries, agreed on the timeline. Total commitment, but consensual. Alexander…” She glanced toward the engineering room where he was sequestered. “Alexander has just slid into it. No discussion, no agreement, no fucking exit plan. Just this gradual intensification that neither of us saw coming until we were already drowning in it.”
“You’re concerned,” I observed.
“I’m watching him become less,” she admitted. “Like a familiar street where the lights are going out one by one. Unlike Vivian Rosberg, neither Gemma nor I signed up to watch someone we love disappear by degrees.”
This architecture was most visible in the changing communication patterns among Alexander’s core team. Claudia now screened every request with unprecedented rigour. Adamo had implemented what he called “maintenance protocols” rather than training sessions. Precisely calibrated physical interventions designed not to build capacity but to sustain optimal function.
Even Ricci, Alexander’s race engineer, had adapted his typically exuberant communication style to a more measured cadence during race weekends, his natural Italian expressiveness channeled into a frequency Alexander could process without expenditure.
“We’re not just managing time anymore,” Amy explained. “We’re managing attention. Every interaction has a cognitive cost. Our job is to ensure that cost is only paid where it matters.”
The most revealing window into this period came unexpectedly through Gemma, whom I interviewed several months after her relationship with Alexander had ended. Her perspective on the weeks leading up to their breakup provided an intimate glimpse of how championship contention had altered Alexander’s fundamental rhythms.
“It happened so gradually that I almost didn’t notice,” she told me, seated on the veranda of her family home in Austin. “Our video calls got shorter, more… functional. The playfulness disappeared first. Then the personal details. By Monaco in late May, we were essentially exchanging status updates rather than having conversations.”
When I asked about specific moments, she paused, considering carefully what to share.
“There was this night after Emilia-Romagna,” she finally said. “He’d just won, moved closer in the standings. We had our usual call scheduled. When he appeared on screen, he looked at me like… like he was trying to remember who I was or why we were talking. Just for a second, but it was there. He recovered immediately, was completely present for the entire conversation, but I could see the effort it took. Like he was having to consciously tune to a frequency that used to be automatic.”
Her training journal, which she had shown me during an earlier interview, contained an entry from this period that simply read: “Distance isn’t measured in miles anymore.”
“The most telling thing,” she continued, “was that he didn’t even realise it was happening. When I eventually brought it up, he seemed genuinely surprised. He thought nothing had changed except his schedule. But it wasn’t about time or availability; it was about presence. Even when he was there, he wasn’t fully there. Part of him was always back in the car, in the championship.”
The British Grand Prix at Silverstone in early July marked both a significant step in Alexander’s championship momentum and the final turning point in his relationship with Gemma. His podium finish, his eleventh of the season, kept him firmly in contention while demonstrating the Ferrari’s improving performance. The championship was now a legitimate possibility rather than a distant hope.
Gemma had arranged her training schedule to attend, their first in-person meeting in nearly two weeks. I observed them briefly at a team event, noting the careful distance between them. Physical proximity without the easy synchronicity I’d witnessed in earlier encounters.
“I realised that weekend that we were approaching an inflection point,” Gemma told me later. “Either the championship intensity would eventually ease and we’d find our way back to our rhythm, or…”
She didn’t finish the sentence, but the implication was clear. Their relationship had become another frequency Alexander could no longer fully tune to, not from lack of desire but from the fundamental limitations of attention and energy during a championship campaign.
“We had dinner the night after the race,” she continued. “He was physically exhausted but mentally still completely in the car. I could see him making this tremendous effort to be present, to connect. But his mind kept drifting back to race analysis, strategy for Hungary or wherever it was next, championship calculations. Not because he wanted it to, but because it couldn’t help it.”
When I asked Alexander about this period, his response was illuminating in its directness.
“I didn’t recognise it then, but the frequency of the championship became so singular even I couldn’t hear anything else,” he admitted. “It wasn’t a choice I consciously made. The championship creates its own gravity. Everything else just starts to orbit around it at greater and greater distances.”
He paused, searching for the right words. “It’s like walking into the ocean. You’re ankle-deep, then knee-deep, then suddenly you’re swimming and the shore seems impossibly far away. By the time I realised how far out I’d gone…” He trailed off, his fingers stilling their rhythmic pattern against the table. “The strangest part,” he continued after a moment, “is that it felt natural. Each step deeper made sense in the moment. You don’t notice the current pulling you out until you try to turn back.”
The invisible architecture of Alexander’s championship campaign reached its most refined form after his victory in Singapore, where he took the championship lead for the first time since the early season. With just six races remaining and a narrow two-point advantage, the containment field around him became nearly hermetic.
Amy now physically positioned herself between Alexander and potential distractions during race weekends. Adamo monitored vital signs and cognitive indicators with unprecedented frequency. Claudia reorganised his entire communication system to create what she called “cognitive silence” between essential inputs.
I witnessed this system in action during a brief interview session before the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Every question I asked was evaluated not just for content but for the mental load its answer might require. Amy intervened twice when my inquiries strayed toward territory deemed too demanding of Alexander’s limited attentional resources.
Most telling was Alexander’s apparent unawareness of this protective architecture. He moved through these carefully constructed spaces with the focus of a man navigating by a single distant light, registering obstacles only as shapes to be avoided rather than objects to be identified.
“It’s not about removing humanity,” Amy explained afterward. “It’s about distilling it. Everything non-essential is temporarily suspended, held in trust until after Abu Dhabi.”
The championship was ultimately decided in Abu Dhabi, with Alexander securing victory in the final race after a masterful strategic drive. The moment he crossed the finish line, the containment field that had been maintained so rigorously for months dissolved almost instantly.
Amy described the transformation as “watching someone suddenly perceive the full colour spectrum after seeing only in greyscale.” Long-suppressed emotions flooded back, attention expanded beyond the singular focus of performance, connections that had been held in suspension were reactivated.
But some frequencies, once lost, could not be simply retuned. Though Alexander and Gemma spoke after his championship victory, the relationship that had been “paused” in July wasn’t to be resumed in December. The championship tempo had changed not just his daily rhythms but his fundamental resonance.
“The cost was real,” Alexander reflected during our conversation about this period. “Not just with… relationships, but with aspects of myself. When you narrow your frequency that dramatically, certain harmonics fall away. Some return afterward. Others don’t.”
He paused, looking out toward the Italian countryside visible from his home office.
“I don’t regret the focus. It was necessary for what we achieved. But I understand now why multiple champions have such difficulty maintaining connections outside racing. The most meaningful relationships require presence, attention, a certain consistency of engagement. All things that become luxuries during a title fight.” His voice softened almost imperceptibly. “By the time you recognise what’s happening, the distance has already grown. You tell yourself it’s temporary, that you’ll reconnect afterward, but sometimes… sometimes what disconnects doesn’t automatically reconnect just because you finally have the bandwidth again.”
He shifted in his chair, returning his gaze from the distance to our conversation.
“The championship tempo, once you’ve experienced it, never fully leaves you. Part of you is always listening for it, waiting to accelerate again. That changes you. Not just as a driver, but as a person. It reshapes priorities, perceptions, possibilities. Not everyone in your life signed up for that transformation.”
The careful way he avoided specific mention of Gemma while clearly reflecting on their relationship revealed more than direct reference might have. This was Alexander’s oblique acknowledgment of the price he’d paid for his championship. A connection that had mattered deeply, sacrificed to the singular frequency of his pursuit.
This championship-induced tempo change revealed perhaps the most fundamental truth about Alexander’s relationship with time and rhythm. For all his ability to stretch moments, to create space within compression, to maintain multiple frequencies simultaneously, even he had limits. The championship demand had required a singular focus that temporarily rendered him incapable of sustaining the complex polyrhythms that normally defined his existence.
As Amy described it: “It was like watching an orchestra gradually reduce to a single instrument. Still producing beautiful music, but within a much narrower range. The fullness would return, but not identical to before. Some notes had been permanently retuned.”
In a life defined by precisely managed frequencies, the championship tempo had proven the most demanding and transformative of all. A rhythm that, once established, continued to resonate long after the season’s final notes had faded.
Finding Balance
December, 2024
December in the Italian countryside brings a particular quality of stillness. The tourist crowds have long dispersed, the harvest bustle has subsided, and a gentle quiet settles over the rolling hills. It was in this atmosphere of natural decompression that I found Alexander three weeks after his championship victory in Abu Dhabi.
His home, which during the season functioned primarily as a brief way station between obligations, had transformed into something closer to its intended purpose. An actual residence rather than a theoretical one. Enzo greeted me with enthusiastic familiarity, having enjoyed his owner’s unprecedented continuous presence for nearly twenty days.
Alexander himself had visibly changed since I’d last seen him at the Ferrari celebration in Maranello. The coiled intensity that had defined him throughout the championship fight had loosened, if not disappeared entirely. He moved with a deliberate slowness that suggested conscious recalibration rather than mere relaxation.
“I’m learning how to operate at normal speed again,” he explained as we settled in his kitchen, where he was making coffee with none of the precision that characterised his travel ritual. “It’s surprisingly difficult.”
This period of decompression had become a study in contrasts. The same man who had maintained incredible discipline for months now deliberately disrupting his own patterns. His phone remained in another room. The meticulously organised schedule that had dictated his existence had been replaced by what he called “intentional aimlessness.” Even the coffee he prepared showed a casual disregard for his usual standards. Grounds haphazardly measured, water temperature unmonitored.
“The first week after Abu Dhabi, I tried to maintain the same rhythms,” he admitted, setting down mugs with a carelessness that would have been unthinkable during the season. “I kept to the exact schedule, the precise routines. It took Adamo literally deleing my training plan to make me realise the absurdity of it.”
This tension between discipline and release formed the emotional core of Alexander’s post-championship period. After months of living at an unsustainable frequency, the question that now preoccupied him was not if he could recover, but whether he could find a more balanced rhythm moving forward.
“The problem with extreme compression,” he explained as we walked the perimeter of his property later that morning, Enzo bounding ahead, “is that you don’t notice the cost until afterward. During the championship push, everything felt necessary, proportional. It’s only in retrospect that you recognise how narrow your existence became. And perhaps how much that focus costs you.”
This recognition had prompted a period of deliberate experimentation. Testing which elements of his championship rhythm were essential and which were merely habitual. He’d maintained certain anchors, his morning coffee ritual, evening reflection time, while deliberately dismantling others. The physical training continued but with Alexander under strict instructions to prioritise enjoyment over optimisation. More cycling and more tennis, less weighted pull ups. Communications with the team were limited to specific windows rather than constant availability.
Most revealing was his changing relationship with technology. The precisely organised digital architecture that maintained his connections during the season had been partially disassembled. His phone now spent hours untouched. Email responses were delayed rather than immediate. Video calls were scheduled with comfortable margins rather than precision-timed transitions.
“I’m trying to determine which rhythms are sustainable and which are only appropriate for championship intensity,” he explained. “The difficulty is that my natural inclination is toward structure and precision. Finding the middle ground between chaos and control doesn’t come naturally.”
Later that afternoon, Amy arrived for what Alexander described as their “weekly recalibration,” a recent innovation in their long-standing relationship. I was surprised when Alexander suggested I remain for this typically private conversation, explaining that documenting this post-championship period was as important to understanding him as capturing the intensity that preceded it.
They settled in the living area, their familiar comfort with each other evident in their positioning. Neither too close nor too formal, the physical manifestation of their unique professional-personal dynamic.
“How was your day of nothingness?” Amy asked, eyebrows raised in friendly challenge.
“Uncomfortably comfortable,” Alexander replied with a slight smile. “I managed three whole hours without checking the time.”
“Progress.” She nodded approvingly. “And the rest of the week?”
“Mixed. I found myself automatically reaching for the training schedule on Thursday morning. Phantom limb syndrome, I suppose.”
This initiated a conversation unlike any I’d witnessed between them. Not the rapid-fire operational exchanges of race weekends, nor the easy banter of their more casual interactions, but a deliberate exploration of sustainable rhythms. What emerged was a mutual recognition that both struggled with balance in different ways.
“The problem,” Amy observed, “is that we’re rewarded for imbalance. Every championship validates the extremes. Each success reinforces the pattern.”
Alexander nodded slowly. “The machine works. That makes it difficult to justify modifications.”
“The machine works until it doesn’t,” she countered. “We’ve both seen what happens to people who maintain the intensity for too long. The collapse isn’t pretty.”
This reference to unnamed future possibilities hung in the air between them. The cautionary examples of burnt-out perfectionist who had pushed themselves beyond sustainable limits evident to the two of them.
“But will I be as effective with a modified approach?” Alexander asked, voicing what appeared to be his fundamental concern. “The discipline, the precision. They’re not arbitrary. They produce results.”
“The question,” Amy replied carefully, “is whether those results require permanent imbalance or just periodic intensity. Can you achieve the same outcomes with a more sustainable baseline that allows for strategic compression rather than constant constraint?”
Alexander considered this, absently scratching Enzo’s ears as the dog settled between them. “I suspect different phases require different frequencies. The discipline isn’t the problem; it’s the inability to modulate it.”
“Which is precisely what we’re working on now,” Amy reminded him. “Learning to shift gears intentionally rather than staying redlined constantly.”
Their exchange revealed a dynamic I hadn’t fully appreciated before. Amy wasn’t simply managing Alexander’s career; she was actively counterbalancing his natural tendencies. Where he gravitated toward structure, she introduced flexibility. Where his focus narrowed, she maintained peripheral awareness of the broader context.
“You know,” Alexander said after a thoughtful pause, “there’s a ridiculous irony in how much effort we’re expending to achieve less effort.”
Amy laughed. “Well, only you would approach relaxation with such determination.”
Their shared laughter underscored the fundamental paradox of Alexander’s situation. The very qualities that made him exceptional, his discipline, focus, and capacity for extreme dedication, were simultaneously his greatest strengths and most significant vulnerabilities.
As their conversation continued, it shifted toward the coming season and the inevitable return to intensity. What emerged was not a rejection of the championship rhythm but a more nuanced approach to deploying it.
“The key,” Alexander reflected, “might be me recognising that different periods require different frequencies. The pre-season doesn’t need the same compression as the championship fight. Recovery isn’t the same as preparation.”
Amy nodded. “Intentional modulation rather than constant acceleration.”
“Exactly. A sustainable baseline with strategic intensity rather than perpetual redlining, as you put it.” Alexander’s expression suggested this idea represented a significant shift in his thinking. Not abandoning the discipline that defined him, but applying it with greater discernment.
What struck me most about this exchange was the underlying gratitude that permeated their discussion. Despite wrestling with the demands of Alexander’s profession, there remained a profound appreciation for the extraordinary life those demands made possible.
“Sometimes I need reminding,” Alexander admitted as their conversation drew to a close, “that these are privileged problems. Figuring out how to balance championship pressures with personal well-being is a challenge most people would gladly accept.”
Amy’s response captured the essence of their shared perspective: “Acknowledging the privilege doesn’t diminish the challenge. It just places it in proper context.”
This balance between recognising genuine difficulties while maintaining perspective on their relative importance seemed to provide a template for the broader balance Alexander was seeking in his approach to time and rhythm.
As evening approached and Amy prepared to leave, Alexander walked her to her car, their conversation continuing beyond my hearing. The silhouette they formed against the winter sunset, two figures gesturing animatedly, occasionally laughing, clearly engaged in the kind of shorthand communication that only long-standing connection allows, illustrated the counterrhythm they provided to each other.
When Alexander returned, he seemed lighter somehow, as though their conversation had resolved something important. He mentioned that Amy would be joining him the following week for what they called their “traditional new year recalibration,” a few days at a remote property where they would establish the framework for the coming season.
“We’ve done this every year since 2021,” he explained. “After the first championship attempt, we realised we needed a deliberate reset process. Not just physical recovery but psychological reorientation.”
This annual ritual revealed yet another layer to Alexander’s approach to rhythm. The recognition that even disruption could be structured, that balance itself required deliberate attention rather than simply emerging in the absence of pressure.
As darkness settled over the countryside and our conversation drew to a close, Alexander mentioned something that caught my attention - a message Gemma had sent after his championship victory.
“She wrote something that’s stayed with me,” he said, his voice quieter now. “That some people come into our lives for a chapter, not the whole story. But it can still be a really good chapter.”
He gazed out toward the darkened landscape for a moment before continuing.
“I think that applies to more than just relationships. The championship intensity might be a chapter, not a permanent state. The discipline that defined this year might be a chapter, not the only way to approach racing.”
This perspective seemed to offer him a framework for the changes he was contemplating - not rejecting what had brought him success, but recognising its place within a larger narrative that continued to unfold.
“I’m beginning to understand,” he said thoughtfully, “that the most sophisticated form of control might be knowing when to turn the page.”
This insight, that different chapters might require different rhythms, different frequencies, different balances between discipline and release, represented perhaps the most significant shift in Alexander’s thinking since becoming champion. Not an abandonment of the qualities that defined him, but a recognition of their proper place in the ongoing story.
In the stillness of his Italian home, surrounded by the rhythms of nature rather than machinery, Alexander Macalister was not rejecting the extraordinary frequency that had carried him to championship glory. He was simply acknowledging it as one chapter in a longer composition - a brilliant, demanding chapter that had served its purpose but needn’t define every page that followed.
The fundamental narrative remained unchanged. The next chapter, however, was being carefully reconsidered. Not just for the coming season, but for the story still unfolding beyond it.