“Understood, Caleb,” JP says.
I find this fascinating. I still can’t believe as a fan, I can listen in to any car in F1 and hear the conversations they have with their race engineers. Practice is when they can work out things on the car that aren’t quite right, like this steering issue Caleb is having.
It’s amazing that I get to hear it. And another reason why I love F1.
I grab my phone and open Google. Then I type in “Collings Motors” plus “scandal” and find myself growing anxious as I hit search.
Immediately my screen is populated with the words “sex scandal” and “sexting” and “sex text scandal.”
As soon as I see the words, my stomach swirls with nausea. Caleb in a sex scandal? But then I see the dates on the articles.
They are from seven years ago. Caleb would have been sixteen then and racing in F3. Long before I ever became a fan of the sport.
I furrow my brow as I click on one and read the headline:
COLLINGS MOTORS SEX SCANDAL! Karina Collings, mother of Formula 3 Star Caleb Collings and wife of Collings Motors heir David Collings, caught in racy affair with Collings Motors F1 driver Lars Olsson.
I gasp. His mom had an affair with one of the team drivers?
Grainy pictures show her kissing Lars, with leaked text messages accompanying the story. I begin to read them but stop. They are flirty and sexual, and I feel as if I’m invading their privacy.
Oh my God. This must havedestroyedCaleb when he was sixteen.
I go back to the search page, and there’s article after article about the affair, the lewd texting, descriptions of nude photos exchanged—all things that should be private. I click out of it.
Then I find another article that suggests the leak came from his father:
TEXTS RELEASED BY DAVID COLLINGS!
“She will pay!” David Collings releases sexting conversations between wife and Lars Olsson.
Olsson’s girlfriend calls Karina a homewrecker and describes how she stole Lars behind her back.
My stomach sinks even further with each one I read.
Then I find one that links Caleb directly:
F3 Driver Caleb Collings Struggles on Track after Family Scandal Revealed
I swallow and click on that article. Inside, there are pictures of a younger Caleb surrounded by the media, all taking pictures and shoving microphones in his face, no doubt wanting his thoughts on his mom’s affair with the team driver.
His life was turned upside down by an affair that rocked his family, and because his last name is Collings, Caleb had no escape from it. The media ran with this story, releasing the most intimate of details, and the entire family suffered as a result. I read further—apparently the driver left the team after his season was over, and his parents reconciled.
But Caleb had to live through the embarrassment, the gossip, the scrutiny, the prying into his life.
When he was only a teenager.
I change my search to include Caleb, and a whole slew of new articles populates my screen.
Lars Olsson was Caleb Collings’s Hero—Now He’s the Man Who Broke Up His Parents’ Marriage
“No Comment.” Caleb Collings Won’t Take Sides in Parents’ Marital Drama
Track Woes Continue for Caleb Collings in Wake of Mum’s Sexting Scandal
He Was One of the Brightest Talents in F3. Is His Star Fading Due to Family Crisis?
I turn my attention back to the TV coverage on my laptop, watching as Caleb pulls off the track, going down pit lane and having his car pushed back into the garage, no doubt for some tweaks before he tests it again.