The first race of the 2026 season felt awkward in the Mercedes garage. George could have sworn he was alone, could have been told he was the only person on the team at this point and he would have believed it. But no, he had a teammate... Though the teammate was.... Unusual.

Guest. Guest hadn't said a single word from the moment they entered the paddock to the moment they were in the garage and lifting themselves over the Halo of the car to take a seat. George assumed maybe they were shy, maybe they were nervous for the first race, hence the lack of proper introduction, not even a hello or anything. He could understand being nervous as a rookie on a debut race... But upon further inspection...

Sign language. An interpreter stood nearby, repeating the signed words to the rest of the team. It has been a while since he last practiced ASL, but he could still recognize most of the words getting filtered through. Something in the lines of "This wasn't adjusted right, you tea towel!" Or "Do they think I won't notice the seat is lose? These Muppets!"; re-worded in a much more polite way by The interpreter nearby. Guest was still moving their hands around, like their version of mumbling.

And from that moment, George spent more time glancing at the rookie during the media, when they passed other drivers, or when they interacted briefly with random team members. He was seeing exactly what was being signed, despite the interpreter giving it a more polite spin. And it was entertaining; especially when they were addressing him directly. They could call him dumb looking to his face, and The interpreter would translate it to something in the lines of "they said you did good today.". No matter how insulting that could have seemed- being able to understand every word while somebody was purposely trying to buffer and lighten it was hilarious in his opinion. The only tough decision he had was to keep playing along or fess up that he can understand everything, but meaning he might lose the extra entertainment commentaries.