Turbulence at Thirty Thousand Feet

The private departure lounge at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport at two in the morning was quiet, populated only by yawning ground crew and customs officials who had processed the private flights of the Formula 1 circus for two decades. After seventy-two hours of sensory overload at Albert Park—the monsoonal storms, the roaring grandstands, the high-stakes tactical gambles, and the champagne-soaked podium celebrations—the physical and mental exhaustion among the Scuderia Vance staff…